The Challenge
by MetalPrincess13
Summary: Ash’s return home becomes interesting when he hears he must return to the Indigo Plateau in order to become a gym leader - throw in a changed rival and some new friends and you have a friendly challenge that just might have interesting results for Ash.
1. Chapter 1

**The Challenge**

Summary: Ash's return home for an extended visit becomes more interesting than he could have imagined when Professor Oak informs him of the requirements to become a gym leader – especially since one of the requirements involves him returning to the Indigo Plateau for another go at the Kanto Pokemon League Competition. Throw in a changed rival and a few new friends who have decided to return to pokemon training and you've suddenly got yourself a friendly challenge that just might have some interesting results for Ash! Sorry to say, but no Palletshipping this time. The first chapter or so are a bit slow-starting but the story will pick up in pace pretty quickly.

Rated T just in case.

Disclaimer – I own the storyline, the OCs, my interpretation of the characters, and nothing else.

Chapter 1

It was still pretty early when I finally crested the hill that overlooks Pallet Town. The sun was fairly high and the sky was clear with only a few clouds, the air was chilly but it was a welcome change from the icy cold of Sinnoh. Looking down, I could see the town bristling with life, which I supposed it should be considering it's already eleven on a Thursday morning. The morning traffic had already subsided downtown and there are few cars on the streets. I could see the entire town from my perch on the hilltop, even the eastern outskirts which contain my house and the vast expanse at the southern edge of town where Professor Oak's lab, reserve, and mansion are located.

Home sweet home. Finally.

I couldn't help the wide grin that spread across my face as I take in the sight of the town; judging by the way Pikachu is bouncing and chirping on my shoulder, I'd say he's as happy as I am to be back. It's been nearly a year since I last visited home and it felt good to be standing on this particular hill. A breeze ruffled my hair and I fought back a shiver despite how used to the cold I had grown since I began training in the Sinnoh region. Sinnoh is where I've been for the past two years, I competed in the Pokemon League competition there in October and I've been slowly traveling back to Pallet for the past month. Now… I'm headed home for a while. I'm heading home so I can decide what to do next; I mean, I've traveled through the four major training regions along with a minor one, I've competed in six of the major pokemon competitions and a ton of smaller ones and I've done well in all of them. And now I have no idea what to do or where to go. With my eighteenth birthday soon approaching, I'm starting to grow nervous as training rarely works out as a career. I'm hoping Professor Oak and Tracey can help me decide what to do next, because I sure have no idea.

Looking back on the nearly eight years that I've spent traveling from region to region as a pokemon trainer, I suppose this concern about the future is the biggest way I've changed. I really haven't changed that much, all things considered. My hair is still a horrible mess, though it's longer, now about the length Tracey's was when I first met him. My jeans are still worn to the point where I'm almost afraid of what Mom's reaction will be when she sees the state of them – I know she's definitely going to drag me out shopping sometime soon, especially since I'll be home for the next several months. Still the same old Ash, just a bit confused about what to do next.

I glanced over at Pikachu with the grin still on my face. "Ready to go home, buddy?" I asked, laughing when he squealed in joy. "Same here – we'll be just in time for lunch if we walk fast enough."

--- --- ---

I had been home for well over an hour, telling Mom, in great detail, about the competition in Sinnoh in between bites of food and listening to her talk about the changed she had made around the house since I last visited; something about a bigger vegetable garden and a renovated bathroom, I hadn't exactly been listening closely. As much as I enjoyed catching up, I was pretty eager to speak to the professor as soon as I possibly could, more than that though, I really wanted to catch up with the other people in town. I know I hadn't spoken to Tracey in months and he isn't my only friend in town either.

"Hey, Mom? Have you seen Professor Oak lately?" I asked after a few moments of wondering when to head over to the lab.

Mom paused in the middle of describing the dilemma she had faced in painting the kitchen three months prior and nodded. "I ran into him at the grocery store last week actually. He's been quite busy at the lab, apparently he's undertaking a big research project, and May isn't helping him out as much as she used to since Gary's home."

I glanced up as I snagged a chocolate chip cookie from a plate in the middle of the table. I hadn't seen my old rival, now friend, in perhaps two years – the last time being when I had by chance run into him in Sinnoh. If he were still a trainer, I'm sure I would've run into him at the Pokemon League Competition in October at the very least; but, instead of training, he's been… Actually I don't know what he's been doing in Sinnoh. The last, and only, time I ran into him in Sinnoh, he said he was going to school in Pastoria City. If that was the case, then I can't see what he would be doing home, unless he was simply visiting for a few days.

"When did Gary get into town?" I asked, absently scratching Pikachu behind the ears as he munched on one of Mom's freshly baked cookies.

"He moved home in August, Ash – don't you ever keep in touch with your friends?"

"I try to," I hedged defensively. "It's not that easy when you're traveling though."

"Why don't you go over to Professor Oak's lab and catch up with everyone then?" she suggested calmly while she poured herself a cup of tea.

I gave the suggestion little thought since I had already been planning on doing so but a sudden different thought made me pull my pokedex out of my poket, flip it open, and glance at the date in the bottom corner of the screen. December eleventh. Gary's birthday, I realized dimly, eighteenth birthday to be exact.

Well, I thought, this is going to make things awkward.

--- --- ---

I didn't head over to the Oak place immediately after finishing catching up with my mother; instead I decided to shower, unpack, and relax for a little while before heading out. After all, part of the reason I came home was to relax, what good was it if I didn't at least try to do that? Pikachu was perched on the windowsill as I tossed most of my training equipment unceremoniously into my closet just to get it out of the way for the moment. My few articles of clothing were thrown in a pile on the floor for washing later on – I would definitely have to go out shopping with Mom at some point soon to replace the worn sneakers and grungy jeans. I quickly grew bored after lying on the bed that I had all but outgrown for a few minutes and switched on the old pc that was sitting on my desk while thinking about the old friend that I would certainly be seeing at the lab whenever I went over there.

Gary and I were once best friends, along with Kate, the girl that lived down the road from my house; we were nearly inseparable. Mom had been friends with Kate's mother so we were playmates before preschool, where we met Gary. The three of us were in the same classes in school until Gary got to skip part of second grade but, even then, we played every day either at my house, in Kate's backyard on her tire swing, or, most often, in the woods around Gary's house and in the lab with pokemon. That was before Gary's parent's died though, after that happened, Gary never hung out with us. I didn't understand it back then and always tried to get him to play with us for years, only to have him respond cruelly and turn his back on me. I finally understood after I had been travelling through Kanto for a few months and homesickness hit me – I knew what it felt like to miss a parent, but I could at least talk to my mom on the phone or visit her, Gary didn't have that possibility. It was too late then, our friendship was a full-blown rivalry and Gary had replaced me with a new best friend: her name was Anna and she was one of May's friends, which meant she was over a year older than Gary, closer to two years to be exact. She went with Gary on his pokemon journey when we had decided at six that all three of us would go together. Kate went along with May, Anna, Anna's sister, and two more of May's friends when Gary left and I hardly saw her.

Our trio was broken up… until the competition at the Indigo Plateau, that is. You see, Kate was one of the other two trainers that left at the same time as Gary and I, but she quit training after a little less than a year. After Gary and I lost in the Indigo League, she returned to Pallet to resume normal schooling and our friendship picked up again as though nothing had happened. By 'our friendship' I mean mine and Kate's; Gary and I didn't put aside our rivalry until after we were done with the Silver Conference and, even now, our friendship was practically nonexistent.

I couldn't keep his mind from drifting to what Gary had been doing home since August. The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder about what exactly he had been up to in Sinnoh. I had never really thought about it until now, Gary was only fifteen when he left for school and I wondered if it was some sort of prep school or an actual university. Being the grandson of a world-famous professor and having spent years of being homeschooled after his parents died, a prep school would be unlikely but I always figured he was too young for university.

Damn it, now I'm curious, I thought as I stared blankly at the computer screen after replying to an email from Misty telling me about the baby Horseas that had been born at the gym. I would definitely have to find a way to go up to Cerulean City to visit her.

I pull up the internet on the pc and search for schools in Pastoria. I find that there are only two schools other than the regular elementary and high schools in the city – one is a community college, unlikely, while the other looks far more promising: the Sinnoh University of Biology Sciences. Now that I see the name, I remember hearing about it; it's an incredibly prestigious school that accepts only the best of the best. Several famous professors either occasionally teach there or have taught there; Professor Birch apparently teaches an ecology class there during the summer semesters when he's not too busy with research and I remember Professor Oak once saying that he taught there when his son went to school there.

Curious, and having plenty of time to spare, I spent the next hour skimming through the website, looking for something interesting. I found that the school was fairly small with a program that allowed students to get a degree in two years – a glance at the program plan online shows that it was two years consisting of three semesters with at least seven classes during each of those semesters. It definitely sounded to me like something Gary would do: rush through it to get another accomplishment out of the way before moving on to yet another one. Apparently the students started classes at sixteen but they have to have at least a year of experience as a pokemon trainer (according to the website it was because researchers have to know how to work with pokemon), an eight month research internship, and top grades in school.

Well, I figured, Gary has grown up in a lab and has a little more than four years of training experience. I never did found out where Gary had been or what he was doing while I was training in Hoenn so I guess that was when he did that internship thingy.

I didn't find anything of particular interest on the website other than that – the school didn't even have sports teams or anything; it was just classes and research. Could you get any more boring? I remembered that Pastoria itself was an interesting city, as he spent a lot of time training there and in the area around it. It's interesting that place could produce such a boring school. And why would Gary – out of all people – be the one to go there? One thing I know about Gary is the fact that he couldn't stay put for ten minutes without getting bored.

That makes no sense… Now my head hurts.

Flipping the computer off again, I figured that I might as well head over to Professor Oak's lab before it got any later.

--- --- ---

**::Author's Note::**

This story is a spinoff of my fic Beyond the Walls, it corresponds with chapters 24 and up, it's also kinda AU from the whole Diamond & Pearl part of the anime series since I don't really know much past the Orange Islands. This is Ash's side of things, you don't have to read Beyond the Walls to understand it, though that story does explain Gary, Tracey, and all of the OCs - not that they matter so much in this story.

Also, this fic started off as Changes, it had been posted as eight chapters that I, quite frankly, thought sucked. I completely rewrote the entire fic and it now is faster moving and doesn't focus so much on the characters other than Ash.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Challenge**

Chapter 2

Late that night – and I do mean _late_ – I lay back in my bed with a tired sigh; it had been a long afternoon and an even longer evening and night. I hadn't gotten much of a chance to talk to Professor Oak since he was kind of busy with everything in the lab (something to do with a pregnant Arcanine), so I would have to wait a few days before being able to talk to him about my options. I managed to catch up with Tracey for awhile while I followed him around on the ranch as he worked and ended up not only finding out the he was gay (boy, did that one surprise me) but also being talked into staying for a surprise birthday party that he and the professor were having for Gary.

Then I got to spend some time talking to Kate, who I found out was working at a coffee shop downtown and taking classes at the community college in Viridian City. It was nice to talk to her for awhile, it always is, actually, since she's one of those people who are always nice and calm. She surprised me though, I can say that with certainty. I was expecting the thin little red-head I knew as a kid, not this girl who had suddenly grown up into a… really pretty… chick, I guess. I had never really seen her as a _girl_ like that before, it was as if I had _just_ noticed the way her creamy skin was framed by wavy red hair, or how pale her big blue eyes were and how nice they looked with that pink shimmery stuff she put on. And that was just Kate – not all of the other girls that were there! God… teenage hormones… I don't know when they suddenly showed up.

I digress, I'm getting ahead of myself. Suddenly finding Kate attractive was surprising but definitely not the most surprising thing of the night – Gary by far took that particular award. Gary has always managed to surprise me in some way, whether it be the way he can suddenly turn out to be cruel and harsh or the way he had always managed to catch so many pokemon or earn so many badges as a trainer, and then there was that major surprise when he decided to become a researcher. Over time, though, there have been certain things I had just grown to expect from Gary, defining features, if you will: spikey hair, the tanned skin of a traveling trainer, long sleeves, that annoying arrogance and sarcasm. The last two were still there, though the former was toned down quite a bit. Despite the fact that those two defining features of his were still there, I had no idea how to even think of my former rival. The other features that I always associated with him were gone.

Spiked hair? I suppose it's a bit hard to spike it when it hangs down to the middle of your back, though it actually didn't look so bad on him.

Tan skin? Try being pale as a ghost! Completely unlike the friend I once had who was hardly ever indoors as a child.

The long sleeves he had constantly worn since we were twelve? Yeah, those were gone too, and I found out why he had worn them in the first place: six years of cutting himself. That one… well, that actually scared me, as did learning that the reason he had moved back home was because of a suicide attempt.

Oh, yeah, and did I mention the piercings, eyeliner, heavy metal, and the fact that he had learned to play guitar? The last wasn't all that surprising, I suppose, considering that he had started playing piano when he was four – it had annoyed the hell out me back then because he would play for hours while I only wanted to go outside and play. As for the rest, well, all I can say is this: out of all of the subcultures he could have joined, a heavy metal head-banger was the last thing I expected. Enough said.

I can't really say that I had a bad time though, I mean, why else would I have stayed over past midnight? I had met a ton of new people, all whom had traveled from Sinnoh just for the party. A bunch of them had been pokemon trainers at some point, which was pretty cool, and some of them even had their pokemon with them. All in all, I had a pretty good time. As I closed my eyes to drift into sleep, one of the people I had met stuck out in my mind: a petite brunette named Chelsea and who was apparently one of Gary's best friends. She had intrigued me; she had gone to the same college as Gary up in Pastoria City and was originally from the Orange Islands (Ascorbia Island, I think), she trained pokemon in the Orange Islands and Kanto region for four years in between school, and even worked with Professor Ivy as an intern. She was almost as sarcastic as Gary (though not quite as annoying) and was actually pretty funny… Emphasis on the pretty too; she was average but there was just something about her that caught my attention.

--- --- ---

It felt so nice to sleep in for once, especially in a nice warm bed with a roof over your head. As much as I love camping out and sleeping in a sleeping bag under the open sky, it kind of loses its appeal when the temperature begins to drop dramatically and you have next to nothing to protect you from the wind or cold. Yep, my bed was a welcome change. Pikachu apparently thought so too, considering the way he had burrowed his way into the blankets during the night.

It was around eleven when I finally dragged myself out of bed, which is pretty late when you're used to getting up whenever the sun rises, and wandered down stairs. Mom was already at the table with a certain redhead whom I hadn't seen enough of last night since she was too busy talking to one of Gary's friends.

"Oh, he lives," Kate giggled when she noticed me.

"Someone had a late night, I see. Good thing Professor Oak called last night to tell me that you were staying late, I would've been awfully worried if he didn't. There's pancakes in the oven, by the way." Oops. I forgot I told mom I wouldn't be at the lab too late. I probably should have called her… oh well.

I ate breakfast quickly while talking to Mom and Kate, and found out that Mom intended on dragging me out shopping ASAP for new clothes. Fortunately, Kate was heading back over to the Oak place after picking up some things from her house and had stopped by to invite me along. Eager to escape being unwillingly taken to the mall, I agreed pretty easily and with minimal convincing and we left only a short while later.

Walking along the roads of Pallet to Professor Oak's lab with Kate felt awesome. The air was chilled but the sun was shining and it felt wonderful on our backs, better yet, it brought back childhood memories. Memories of when we would race down the then-dirt road (it had been paved since then) towards the woods, then whoever won would stop and wait so that we could cut through them together. Beyond the patch of woods was a vast field with a small stream before the forest that surrounded Professor Oak's property. We used to cross the stream on stepping stones and go through the woods until we reached the backyard at the professor's house. That was the fast way to the lab, taking the roads took longer and it wasn't as fun. God, I missed the old days.

Glancing Kate over, I noticed she was wearing purple Converses with flowers on them and cropped jeans. That meant she could run and that was all the encouragement I needed.

"Race you!" I yelled and took off down the road with Pikachu clinging to my shoulder for dear life. I heard Kate laugh and begin chasing after me.

The last thing I expected was for her to catch up with me; now having longer legs, I would think that I would be able to run faster. Apparently not the case. Not only did Kate catch up with me but she beat me horribly. I couldn't help but wonder when she had gotten so fast; she usually spent most of her time reading and how that equated to running fast was beyond me. She reached the trees first and stopped, watching me as she caught her breath; I laughed and fell to the ground once I reached the small grassy patch between the woods and the road. Pikachu jumped off of my shoulder and scampered over to Kate before quickly leaping up to perch on her shoulder.

"So Mr. Pokemon Master is out of shape, I see."

I looked up to see Kate standing over me with a small smile on her face and looking as though she were fighting back a laugh. She reached up and scratched Pikachu behind the ears and her soft smile grew into a grin as he practically purred under her touch. I couldn't help but grin at the sight; Pikachu had always been fond of Kate and her pokemon, especially her eternally happy eeevee, Shadow, and her hyperactive charmeleon, Socrates. Then again, it wasn't hard for someone to be fond of her – she was just too nice to dislike. And she picked out awesome pokemon: I remember hearing a story involving her horsea using Watergun on Gary for being in a bad mood after losing a battle. Six or seven years later and I'm _still_ trying to get Kate to admit that she ordered her pokemon to do that… Either way, any pokemon with the nerve to do that is a good one; or at least a funny one.

"Only a little," I replied. "Seriously, how did _you_ get so fast?"

"Playing soccer with the girls and Tracey. And Gary, on the rare occasion that he ventures out of his lair… which is actually a lot more common lately than it was when he first came home." I noticed how distant her voice seemed at the last part and wondered what exactly it meant but didn't ask. As curious as I was about how different Gary now was, I really didn't feel like talking about him, not when I was having fun hanging out with Kate.

My response was little more than an 'oh' as I stood up and we began to walk through the woods. The woods of Pallet have always seemed different from the woods in the other places I've been to, maybe it's because I'm so familiar with them. Kate and I walked in a comfortable silence for a few minutes while Pikachu ran around ahead of us, sniffing tree trunks and occasionally pawing at the ground. He seemed happy to be back in Pallet.

"How long are you going to be home, Ash?" Kate asked after awhile.

"Until my birthday."

"Why so long? Is everything ok?"

I smiled at the concern in her voice. "Everything's fine, I'm just taking a break," I assured her but she looked worried. "Why?"

She shook her head slightly. "Sorry, I'm just a bit paranoid now. Gary moved home suddenly in August saying that he just needed a break from school and in the end it was because of a suicide attempt… I just didn't want it to be anything like that." I hated how sad she sounded when she said that.

"How long was it before Gary told anyone about that?" I asked.

"Beginning of October, as far as I know. He apparently actually sat May, Anna, and his grandpa down and told them about it; then we got in a fight and he kind of threw it in my face… Not exactly a great way to find out that your best friend tried to kill himself," she added bitterly, kicking at a rock that was on the ground. I know I mentioned that Anna had replaced me as Gary's best friend but I had also learned last night that she and Gary were now dating and had been since Halloween. From what I could see, it seemed more like they had been dating since three Halloweens ago, that was just how they acted around each other.

"What was with all of the fighting between you two? You never used to fight much when we were kids. Me and Gary were always the ones to fight." That last part especially was true, I could tell so many stories about the fights we used to get into. It's amazing that we were once best friends, considering the injuries we used to give each other and how much trouble we used to get each other into.

Kate was quiet for a few minutes as we broke through the edge of the woods and began to cross the grassy field to a distant patch of forest. "Part of it was because I was jealous of Anna," she finally said. "But Gary was also really moody when he got back home from Sinnoh. He'd be fine one minute and then pissed off or depressed the next; even Anna and May said that he was acting different. Everyone pretty much thought he had just dropped out of school for no reason," her voice lowered sadly. "Once he finally told everyone everything, it all made sense. I guess we weren't exactly being very good friends for us to not realize something was wrong."

I stopped in the middle of the field and Kate followed suit; she looked slightly confused as I turned to face her. "You're one of the best friends anyone could ever have, Kate. Don't let something that Gary did make you question that! You know Gary, he never tells anyone _anything_ – I'm surprised he's changed enough to actually stop doing that." I said honestly, feeling pissed at Gary for making her feel this way. "How could you know what was going on with him when he wouldn't even tell his best friend or his sister?"

Kate stepped around me and continued to cross the field, leaving me a bit baffled. She usually didn't do things like that; usually she would stand and hear someone out entirely. It wasn't like her to just walk away from something; I guess it just goes to show how much this whole thing with Gary really affected her. I almost wished I was capable of affecting her like this; I don't mean making her sad. What I mean is, I wish she liked me as much as she liked Gary. She had seriously been head-over-heels for him since I was in Hoenn! And it wasn't as if Gary returned those feelings; he had definitely been into Anna way more than Kate, in more ways than one, too. Part of me wanted to punch Gary in the face for that… another part of me really envied him for having the ability to make people practically love him. Ugh, it was so confusing.

--- --- ---

I was partially surprised to see that the lab was pretty crowded, compared to usual that is. Dr. Harris, a researcher that used to work in the lab when I was a kid and now worked in Sinnoh (he was also May and Gary's godfather, if memory served correctly) was helping Professor Oak with a nidorino that was freaking out as they bandaged an injury while May watched on with a bottle and syringe. One of the guys that I recognized from the party the night before (I think his name had been Shawn) was doing something on one of the new-looking computers that were set up on desks in the back area of the lab and the girl Chelsea was placing large books on shelves over each of the desks. I don't think I've seen so many people in the lab at once since I was a little kid and Gary's parents worked in the lab with Dr. Harris and Professor Oak; usually it's just the professor and Tracey or May. Kate and I had split ways when we reached the house with Kate going to the porch to hang out with some of the people from the night before while I headed to the lab. May smiled and greeted me when I entered the building.

I eyed the bucking pokemon nervously while Pikachu cooed softly in concern. "Do you guys need help?" I asked.

"Probably but it wouldn't be a good idea to have any more people near him. He's scared enough with two people surrounding him but we need him to be held down so Grandpa can treat his wounds – the nidorino have been fighting for dominance for months." May explained quickly as I leaned against the lab bench she was standing next to. Pikachu jumped down and began sniffing the bottle interestedly.

"Uh, Pikachu, I don't think you should play with that," I quickly interceded by scooping him up and letting him climb up on my head. "What is that stuff, May?"

May laughed and I smiled at the sound; I had always liked Gary's elder sister. She was a lot like Kate in the fact that they were both some of the nicest people you could possibly meet even though I knew she could be _incredibly_ protective of her brother. With only two years between the two siblings, they could almost pass as twins, especially now that they both have long hair. May's auburn hair, though wavy compared to Gary's perfectly straight hair, was only a few shades lighter and her blue eyes were only a touch darker than Gary's. Their eyes were the same exact shape and they even had the same high cheekbones and straight nose. It was kind of eerie at times. "You two amaze me and this is antivenin in case someone gets stung by one of those spines. Nidorino venom isn't as strong as a nidorina's but it can make you kind of woozy."

I nodded in understanding; I had gotten stung a time or two while hanging around the lab, fortunately, Professor Oak and Tracey know what they're doing. I wasn't aware May was the same way. "I didn't know you helped out with first aid," I said.

I noticed May furrow her brow slightly as she swept her hair out of her face. "I help out a lot," she said quietly. "I can do a lot of emergency things around here; I even gave my brother eleven stitches a few months ago," she added with a nervous glance at Professor Oak.

"What happened?" Gary never seemed to get injured that often, I was always the one getting stitches and bandages and shots of all sorts.

"You saw his arms, Ash; what do you think?" May asked. Though I understood what she was talking about immediately – I had seen the scars on Gary's arms the night before – the harsh tone in her voice caught me off guard; May was always very sweet and caring, the meanest thing she would ever do is occasionally hit Gary upside the head for doing something rude or stupid. It was always rewarding to see her do that whenever Gary and I ran into each other throughout Kanto, which isn't really as mean as it sounds.

I didn't reply to her question and she didn't say anything else. It didn't seem like she was mad at me; it just seemed like she was deep in thought. I felt kind of bad for May, with the way she's always looked out for Gary, it must have been hard for her when she found out about… well, everything.

It was awhile longer before the adults finished up with the nidorino and even longer before I finally got a chance to talk to the professor. I passed the time by talking to Shawn and Chelsea and I found out that they were both going to be researchers on Professor Oak's new research team for some sort of eevee breeding program that Kate had briefly mentioned yesterday. Apparently Shawn was trying to upload new programs for processing data on the computers that Professor Oak had recently purchased specifically for his newest team. Shawn seemed like a guy who belonged in a lab; it was just something about how quiet he was and how quickly he managed to work on the computers. He just seemed like he would fit in with a bunch of researchers, Chelsea, on the other hand, was different. She seemed like she was better suited to be a trainer than a researcher with her energy and attitude. She almost reminded me of Misty, just… different. The more I talked to her, the more I liked her and it was confusing me because I felt the same way about Kate. Never having a girlfriend was starting to have a negative effect on me.

It was almost relieving when Professor Oak finally came over and greeted me after bringing the nidorino outside and checking on the other pokemon. "Hello, Ash. We hardly got a chance to talk yesterday, you certainly seemed surprised to see my grandson last night." Here we go again with Gary…

I forced a smile. "Yeah, it was kind of a shock… The hair and the piercings really weren't something I'd ever associate with Gary."

"Ah, yes, I know what you mean. I can deal with the hair considering my son had long hair for several years when he was Gary's age and, of course, Dr. Harris has had long hair for quite some time now. The piercings though," Professor Oak shook his head with a sigh. "I couldn't understand the point in my son's tattoo either but I assume you're not here to talk about Gary."

"Yeah," I admitted. "I actually wanted to talk to you about something."

"Oh boy, the last few times someone has said that to me, I've found out very worrisome things." Professor Oak said as he made his way over to the desks, gesturing for me to follow him as he sat down at one of them. I followed and sat in the chair at the desk next to the one he was at. "Tell me, what is it you want to talk about?"

"Well, I'm going to be in Pallet until my birthday and that's pretty much because I don't know where to go next. I was kind of hoping you could give me an idea."

"There are many different things you could do, Ash," he began, sounding thoughtful. "But if you're going to be here until the end of March, why do you need to decide so soon? You just got home yesterday, after all." I stared at him. Was Professor Oak telling me to take a break? That wasn't something he did very often, usually he encouraged me to keep going to the next place. This was definitely a change. Something must have shown because he laughed softly. "Not something you expected to hear?" he asked. I nodded in response; that was one way of putting it. "Well, I realized – at my grandson's expense, that it's important to take breaks when you need them. Jumping right back into training by running off to a new place is not your only option at the moment. The past few times you've come home after a competition, you've left within a few days, heading to a new region with hardly any break." I had to admit that he was right with that. "I can name off a few things that you could do but I'd like to see you think about them for a few days and genuinely take them into consideration before running off."

"Ok," I replied easily. What harm would staying around do? "Shoot."

"Well, for starters, you could stay in Pallet and train while helping me here in the lab." I assumed this was a joke when the professor chuckled softly at my apparently funny reaction to that suggestion. "I was kidding, Ash. Though you are more than welcome to help out with the pokemon here while you're in town until your birthday, you would likely find it quite enjoyable." I don't know how much I would enjoy helping out in the lab, it seems boring. Playing with and training the pokemon here, on the other hand, that could be fun… "Other than that, you could redo any region you've already been through-"

"I thought about redoing Kanto, but I don't know. I'd kind of like to do something entirely new."

Professor Oak smiled at that. "I figured that. Here's something you might not have considered though: if you were to redo Kanto entirely, you might just be able to become a gym leader."

A gym leader? I'd never really thought about that. There's a big difference between being a gym leader and a pokemon master, that's for sure. But if you're a gym leader, then you're kind of trapped in a gym, aren't you? But then you get to battle all the time… Hmm… Maybe that wasn't that bad of an idea.

I was about to ask Professor Oak what trainers have to do to become a gym leader when Dr. Harris interrupted us.

"Samuel, didn't you want Gary to come down here around lunchtime?"

"Ah, yes; I nearly forgot about that. Is it that time already?"

"It's already close to twelve-thirty. You should probably tell him before it gets any later; once he gets out of bed and starts hanging out with his friends he's not going to be too thrilled about coming down to the lab."

Professor Oak sighed and turned back to me. "I'm sorry, Ash," Oh, don't tell me this conversation is over just because you don't want Gary getting annoyed. "I'm afraid he's right, we've been planning this for months and I certainly don't want to forget about it – "

"Do you want me to go tell Gary that you want to see him?" I asked, feeling pretty annoyed that this conversation was getting cut short just to cater to Gary's needs.

"That would great, actually, Ash. He's probably in his bedroom right now, take a right at the top of the staircase and it's the second door on the left; the room next to the attic stairs."

"Alright," I replied, trying to cover up the fact that I really did not feel like fetching Gary for the professor.

"Thanks, Ash!"

Why did I get the idea this was going to be a _long _stay in Pallet?

--- --- ---


	3. Chapter 3

**The Challenge**

Chapter 3

Fetching Gary for the professor ended up being nowhere near as annoying as I had thought it would be, I even ended up hanging out at the house and lab for the rest of the day. It ended up that the reason Professor Oak needed me to go get Gary in the first place was so that he could tell him that he was going to be on the research team for this new project he was doing – which apparently was supposed to be some sort of big surprise birthday present. I ended up hanging out around the house a lot over the next week and, though I barely even saw Gary for some reason or another, I'd had fun just hanging around, playing video games or pool and air hockey in the huge basement-turned-den at the mansion or watching movies with other people around my age. It was a different experience, to be honest, and I have to say I enjoyed it. I was so used to training that I hadn't ever stopped to experience life as a normal teenager; this trip home had turned into a vacation and I was loving it.

Tonight was different though, in fact, the entire day had been different. It had started off several hours earlier than I would have liked because Mom insisted on dragging me out of bed and replacing my entire wardrobe with more clothes than I thought I would ever wear. Seriously, a pair of jeans for each day of the week, plus shorts, plus t-shirts and a new jacket, new shoes; everything. Anyway, after that multi-hour excursion and the time I spent putting everything away, I found my way back over to the lab and _finally_ got a chance to talk to Professor Oak again. It was something I had been meaning on doing for the past week and a half but somehow kept forgetting about. In truth, I had been taking his suggestions into consideration and, after talking to Brock and Misty a bit, I was seriously considering the option of becoming a gym leader.

I mean, let's say I succeeded. Being a gym leader was an actual career – you got paid, you were respected as a trainer, you got to battle all the time… What wasn't to like about it? Well, aside from the fact that you didn't really get to travel but that was something I could deal with; I _had_ been traveling for over nine years now anyways.

Professor Oak was in his office in the lab reading over some papers when I found him and knocked on the door. "Hey, Professor Oak, can I talk to you about something?" I asked when he looked up from the paper in his hand.

"Sure, Ash. Come in and have a seat," he gestured towards one of the armchairs that were opposite him on the other side of the desk. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I was wondering if you knew what trainers have to do to, um, to become a gym leader," I said, feeling kind of nervous for some reason as I slowly lowered myself into one of the seats.

"Ah, thinking of becoming a leader? That's not very surprising – especially for an experienced trainer such as yourself," Professor Oak answered as he straightened the stack of papers on his desk before leaning back in his seat casually.

"Yeah, I figured you would be the person to talk to since Brock and Misty just kinda inherited their gyms…"

"Becoming a gym leader is a long and hard process, Ash; though I have no doubt in my mind that you can do it. Brock and Misty are both good trainers but you were right on how they became leaders – gyms can be inherited through family ties, though the Pokemon League is trying to change that. As a matter of fact, the League just changed the requirements for new gym leaders a year or two ago." Uh oh, that couldn't be good.

"What do you mean?" I asked nervously.

"Well, there've been more and more trainers trying to become gym leaders these past few years and, unfortunately, not all of them are very knowledgeful or experienced trainers so the League has increased the requirements."

I groaned and slumped in my seat. "Great…"

Professor Oak smiled gently. "It's not that big of a deal, Ash. It'll take quite a bit of work, but I'm certain you can pull it off in a fairly short amount of time."

Seven years of training, winning the Orange League, winning the Battle Frontier, _and_ competing and placing in the four major competitions isn't enough to become a gym leader? Geez… "What type of work?"

"For starters, you would have to redo one of the regions and receive all of the badges that are offered and considering there are fourteen or fifteen gyms in Kanto, you would probably have to travel for at least a year since you already have eight of them." Well at least that part isn't so bad… "You have to place in the top four of a competition – which you can easily do –"

"Is that it?"

"No, Ash," Darn. "There are also a few tests you have to pass –"

"I have to take a test?" I asked incredulously. Why a test? Honestly, pokemon training it _not_ school – we shouldn't need tests!

"Several of them, actually," I groaned again and slouched even more in my seat. This was depressing. Professor Oak smiled at my torment. "They actually aren't too difficult for experienced trainers, Ash; Gary had to take them for the university in Sinnoh and he passed them with flying colors."

"What sort of tests?" I asked grudgingly as I fought down a scowl with some minor difficulty.

"Well, they're all on pokemon: training, wild behavior, attacks, evolution, morphology, and I could have sworn there was another one…" I could feel my eyes widen more at every new subject he said. This was going to be hell. "I'll have to double check on those, but I'm sure Tracey would help you study – he knows everything that would be on the test, and I could even give the test to you here in the lab."

"Please tell me that's everything…"

"There _is_ a minimum amount of pokemon species that you have to meet… I believe it's one hundred different species that you've personally trained and owned. That shouldn't be too hard for you."

One hundred different pokemon… Well, that was one thing that wouldn't be too hard; including the evolutions, I was at seventy-three pokemon by now. A hundred wasn't that far off. I was going to have to go through the whole region again anyways so I'd be able to catch a ton of pokemon I hadn't gotten before.

"Hey, Professor?" I asked after thinking for a minute. I'd had an idea. "You said that you have to place in the top four of a competition, right?"

The professor nodded slowly. "Yes, one of the major regional conferences; unfortunately, the Battle Frontier and Orange League don't count as the 'major' conferences."

"But the conference at the Indigo Plateau does, right?" Another nod. "Well, isn't there a conference in a few months?"

"Yes, the beginning of May, I believe. You could probably pull off the top four if you trained hard enough – you could always ask Gary to train with some of his pokemon. I'm sure Umbreon and Arcanine are itching for a good battle."

As much as I hated to admit it, it probably would be a good idea to ask Gary for help training… His pokemon were really powerful and battling them while I was here would definitely help me out. At the same time though, Gary wasn't a trainer anymore and he hadn't been for almost four years. There was no doubt his pokemon were just as strong as they used to be but they were almost certainly out of practice, and then there was the possibility he wouldn't even be interested in helping me.

My doubts must have shown on my face because Professor Oak smiled and got one of those knowing looks on his face that he always seems to get when he deals with me. After a few more minutes of talking, he had pretty much convinced me that Gary would agree to it and we spent awhile longer talking about the upcoming conference and about gyms and all of that fun stuff until Tracey came in with the one friend of Gary's who was still in town.

We ended up hanging out outside on the porch for most of the day, and by 'we' I mean Kate, Tracey, and Andrew (Gary's best friend from Sinnoh, who I suspected had something going on with Tracey). I told them about everything the professor had said and they made a few suggestions for training, some of which I found helpful but didn't really quell the nervousness I felt about the whole situation. Kate left after a few hours to go out to pick up Chinese food with one of May's friends and the rest of us eventually headed inside when she returned.

"Professor Oak said that I should see about training with Gary," I began as we headed inside for food but was interrupted when Andrew suddenly laughed loudly.

"Good luck with that! Umbreon's getting lazy as fuck lately and Arcanine won't leave his girlfriend's side," he exclaimed.

"There're two hundred others to choose from though: Gary owns a good half of the houndoom and houndour on the reserve, battling those ones alone will get you in shape! And as far as those tests go –"

"Easy as hell!" Andrew interrupted Tracey while we sat down and began sorting out the boxes of takeout that Kate had left on the table while she and May's other friends headed into the dining room to eat.

I fought down a snicker as Tracey rolled his eyes and glared at Andrew until he went quiet. Something was definitely going on between those two. Despite the way he seemed to enjoy interrupting Tracey and I when we spoke, I had rather grown to like Andrew. He was kind of hyper and cursed almost nonstop but he was nice and pretty easy to get along with, as were most of Gary's friends, surprisingly.

"They're easy but you'll still have to study," Tracey began again. "I think Gary has the study guides upstairs in the study. Actually, he has a lot of books that would be good for you to read." I groaned at that part –I don't read much, it's too boring for me; I'd rather be outside training. Tracey knows this of course. "They're easy reading; guide books not novels. Ask him if you can borrow them," he said with an understanding smile.

I was about to respond when a voice spoke up from behind us. "Don't tell me you guys have been hanging around the kitchen all day." I turned in my seat to see Gary cross the room towards the table we were sitting at. He sat down between me and Andrew and pulled the remaining box of takeout towards him. I hadn't really seen him all day but knew that something had been going on involving himself, his girlfriend, May, Andrew, and Dr. Harris; whatever it was, it had put him in a foul mood earlier though he seemed to have gotten over it by now.

"Well, what else are we gonna do other than wait for you to get your pussy ass down here?" Andrew of course was the one to ask that. "You _have_ been moping around since Tuesday."

Gary put down his fork and glared at Andrew and I started to worry if there was going to be a fight between them. Now that I thought about it, I realized that Andrew was right; Gary had been MIA for the past few days, starting on Tuesday, though I hadn't noticed too much as I was a bit busy hanging out with other people.

"What? Don't tell me you hate Tuesdays now – you already hate Thursdays because of anatomy lab," Andrew began ticking off days on his fingers. "You hate Mondays because of analytical chem lab, you hate Wednesdays because of botany, and you hate Saturdays because of hangovers! Seriously, man, we're running out of days here!" I assumed he had been talking about school, by now I had gathered that Andrew had gone to school with Chelsea and Gary.

Part of me expected Gary to reach across the table and hit him, the other part of me expected him to ignore the comment entirely. That's why I was surprised when Gary started laughing. Obviously I wasn't the only surprised one, considering the way Tracey and Andrew stared at him.

"Dude, what the hell?" Andrew asked, sounding really confused.

"What?" Gary asked, still laughing.

"You're acting like my brother! Seriously – you were pissed earlier, then you get annoyed at me, and now you're laughing – you're acting as bipolar as he does!"

Gary smirked slightly. "I don't like Ensiferum," he said flatly, waving a hand dismissively. Now I was confused again and it looked like Tracey felt the same way.

"What's wrong with Ensiferum?" Andrew asked, sounding annoyed.

"The fact that every song sounds exactly the same!"

Oh. A band, of course. I wasn't quite used to the way Gary's friends constantly referred to music and bands; especially not when I hadn't even heard of most of the bands other than Iron Maiden and Nightwish…

Gary and Andrew were arguing about this particular band that Gary apparently didn't like when Tracey finally joined the conversation. "What type of band is Ensiferum?"

"Viking," Andrew said flatly before returning to his little argument.

That word made me think of something… I remembered playing with toy swords and battle axes upstairs in this huge room upstairs that had been a playroom when we were younger but now was referred to the music room since it housed a ton of instruments belonging to Gary and Anna. It was mostly a room for hanging out but I digress.

"Hey, Gary?"

He glanced from his friend to me. "What?"

"Do you still have all of the swords and stuff we used to play with when we were little?"

Andrew perked up at the word 'sword'. "Swords?" he asked curiously.

"Not real ones!" Gary snapped.

"Damn it…"

"I honestly have no idea, Ash." Gary replied with a frown. "Why?"

"No reason, I was just thinking…" Part of me really wanted to find the swords and light sabers and everything and play with them for hours. I hated to admit it, but I really wanted things to be like they used to be when me and Gary were children. I wanted my best friend back…

"They could be up in the attic," Tracey suggested after a minute.

I had sort of hoped we would just drop everything and go rushing upstairs to check the attic for the toys but that's not what happened. The other three guys decided to hang out downstairs for well over another hour, just talking and laughing, which I didn't exactly mind. Still, though… I had to bring it up again after awhile.

"Gary, do you think Tracey might be right about the attic?"

He looked confused for a minute but that typical smirk appeared on his face. "You really want to play with those swords don't you?"

"Yeah…"

Gary laughed shook his head. "Ashy-boy here wants to relive his childhood for the rest of the evening," he informed the other two.

I shouldn't have said anything – I should have known Gary would turn it into a way to tease me.

"If it involves swords, I'm all for it." Andrew offered as he began cleaning up his spot at the table.

"Of course you are," Gary muttered.

We eventually ended up going upstairs to the massive attic that was the third floor of the mansion and spent almost an hour pulling sheets off of furniture, finding records to play on the player that Gary had found, and digging through a massive wooden trunk that was filled with all of the toys I had hoped to find before we started goofing off. A small, almost playful argument with Gary had led to fight with some toy light sabers, which had in turn led to a much larger sword fight between all four of us that ended after Gary had "killed" me, after Gary and Andrew kissed, and after Tracey "killed" Gary. The whole thing had lasted maybe ten minutes but left my head spinning.

Gary – the guy I had been best friends with as a kid – had kissed another guy in front of me. Tracey being gay I could deal with but this… was beyond my comprehension. He had been laughing while I apparently had some sort of expression on my face that I can only assume showed that I was surprised; after he noticed my expression, he stopped laughing and came over to sit by me, coolly asking what was up while we watched Tracey and Andrew playfully fight with the swords and shields they had found in the toy chest.

For some reason, his attitude caused something in me to snap. "You just kissed a guy in front of me and you ask me 'what'?" I hissed incredulously. Gary merely shrugged and it only annoyed me more. "You have a girlfriend!" I pointed out.

"Which really brings down the likelihood of me being gay, doesn't it?" Gary asked in that cool tone he had used only a minute ago. He was being defensive, as usual, and it was almost hurtful – hadn't we gotten past this stupid rivalry stage where we kept secrets? Couldn't we just put all of that behind us? Apparently not.

"Christ," I cursed softly as I threw my head back in agitation before turning back to face Gary again. "Just drop the walls around me, Gary! I thought we were past this!"

He ignored me for a few minutes while he focused his attention on watching the other two boys and I couldn't help but glare at him until he finally turned back to me with a frown. "You can stop leering at me now." His tone was flat but I could tell he was annoyed, not as much as I was, but definitely annoyed.

"Funny," I began slowly, in a tone as flat as his. "I always thought I'd be the one to say that."

"Things have changed."

"No, really?" I snapped sarcastically. "Way to point out the obvious, Gary." Gary frowned slightly, I could see that he was confused now and, for some reason, it caused me to start talking. "Look, it's just that since I'm home for a few months and we've been getting along really well over the past few years, and now you've moved home, I was hoping to have my old friend back… I mean, I get it, you've changed a lot but so have I! So have Kate and Tracey but… I don't know, just forget it." I had somehow managed to condense the words but they were more meaningful than they probably sounded and I had the feeling that Gary understood where I was coming from. All I wanted was for things to be like old times, even though those times were so many years ago. I guess that kiss had just been the last surprising thing about Gary that I could stand finding out in such a short amount of time.

He watched Tracey and Andrew play around in the center of the room for a few minutes with an unreadable expression on his face. I didn't dare say anything during this time, remembering how much he always had hated people interrupting his thoughts. He finally turned back to me with a serious expression on his face. "You want to know what that kiss was about?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, I think I deserve an explanation – I was your best friend you know, and I kind of hope I still am."

"Nothing."

"What?" I was confused now.

"Nothing." Gary repeated. "It's sort of a running joke between the two of us, we do it a lot to mess with Andrew's little brother, Nik, and some of our other friends. It's just an inside joke between two friends: that's how I can kiss him when I have a girlfriend. It's not like I'm cheating on Anna by doing it – I wouldn't do that to her."

We stared at each other for a long moment while I tried to determine whether or not he was telling the truth. After a few minutes, I figured that he was at least being mostly honest; it seemed like there was something deeper than that, whether or not he noticed. I decided to let it go and take the statement as what I assumed it do be – a sort of peace offering. I knew Gary well enough to recognize it for what it was but there was still an iciness between us. "Have I gotten past the ice wall yet?" I finally asked, attempting a joke to break the ice that I knew Gary felt as well.

He gave a small smirk that was similar to a half smile. "Maybe."

I laughed at that; it was about as good as it was going to get tonight. The rest of the night went smoothly after that and we ended up having a lot of fun. To make a long story short, it was the beginning of a reinstated friendship and it was definitely a step forward for both of us. I figured I would wait and see whether or not this phase lasted before asking him to help me train for the competition.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Challenge**

Chapter 4

I was sitting in the living room a little more than a week later, a few days after Christmas, watching a pokemon battle on tv when I heard the doorbell ring. It didn't exactly surprise me as both Gary and Kate had been coming over often lately, all three of us had been hanging out almost every day and it seemed, so far, that the friendship between us was back. It was different from what it had been in childhood, but there wasn't much I could do about that – so much had happened that it was simply too much to ask for it to be the same. Still, it was nice. I knew that Mom was busy cleaning up the kitchen after dinner so I stood with a groan, wandered over to the door and opened it.

"Hey, loser," Gary greeted. Pulling the door open wider, I saw that Chelsea was with him, which was surprising considering she had left over a week earlier to visit her family in the Orange Islands. It was a pleasant surprise to see her, I had to admit.

"Hey," I replied. "What are you guys doing here?" I asked as I let them in and closed the door behind them.

"We're leaving for Sinnoh tomorrow and wanted to know if you want to tag along," Chelsea explained.

"Why are you going to Sinnoh? And what are you doing in Pallet, Chelsea? I thought you were staying on… Valencia?"

"Ascorbia," she corrected. Oops. I knew it ended with an '-ia'. "We're heading up to Pastoria to help the boys move."

"And to move all of Chelsea's crap," Gary added.

"Move?"

Gary rolled his eyes and I was tempted to hit him in the back of the head for it. "My god, you were in the lab when Grandpa told me! The research project, you idiot."

Oh yeah, Professor Oak's eevee breeding project that Kate had mentioned in the lab on my first day home. The professor and Dr. Harris had set up a team of researchers that had graduated from the university in Pastoria consisting of Gary, Andrew, Chelsea, and their friends Chris and Shawn. Tracey and May were apparently helping out too, but that was a given, all things considered.

"So you're all going to live in Pallet?"

"Well, that's sort of where the lab is, Ashy," Gary pointed out.

"Shut up, Gary," I muttered and sat down on the couch in the living room. Gary and Chelsea followed suit.

"We'll be there for a week, you should come with us!" Chelsea exclaimed. With the way she said it, it was hard to refuse.

"But I just got home from Sinnoh…"

"It's only a week."

"I've only been home for two weeks though, Gary!"

"You'll be here until the end of March anyway! You'll have plenty of time to visit your mom – Tracey's coming with us –"

"Maybe he and Andrew will finally start dating," Chelsea muttered. _What?_ Well, I did wonder if something had been going on between them; I guess I had been right.

Gary rolled his eyes again and continued. "You won't have anything to do with Tracey gone and Kate working almost every day."

"I have other friends." I said defensively.

"Sure you do." Was Gary's sarcastic response. Jerk. "Just come with us, Ash, it'll be fun – you might even be able to lose your virginity while we're there!" I punched his arm as hard as I could for that last teasing comment and was actually somewhat pleased at the yelp it elicited from him. "Little brat," he muttered, rubbing his arm where I hit him.

"So, do you want to come or not?" Chelsea asked.

I looked over at her and saw that she was grinning at me. Something about this girl just had me, I really liked her; she was pretty and actually really cool. I had gotten to know her a bit while she stayed at Gary's house – she liked scuba diving, she used to be a trainer specializing in grass and water-type pokemon, and she had a ton of personality. I was pretty happy to hear that she was going to be staying in Pallet for awhile while she worked with Professor Oak. Who was I to refuse to go to Sinnoh with her and Gary?

"Yeah, I'll go with you guys. Let me just go talk to Mom about it," I stood up and walked into the kitchen.

--- --- ---

For some strange and unknown reason, I was expecting Mom to be, well, a bit wary of me going back to Sinnoh with Gary but I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn't the case. I guess years on your own as a pokemon trainer changes not only you but the people close to you – she didn't even give me her typical change-your-underwear-everyday speech; she just said to have fun and be safe. She did, however, give Gary a small lecture on driving carefully on the icy roads, which I found to be a bit amusing. Once she finished with Gary's mini-lecture, I led them upstairs to my room to pack up my belongings and as I did so I realized that Chelsea was the first girl other than my mom, Kate, or Misty to be in my bedroom with me. I felt strangely self-conscious over that fact.

To my surprise, Chelsea smiled as she looked around at my room. "This reminds me a bit of my little brother's room," she said as I grabbed my bag out of my closet. "Except it's cleaner."

"That's the good thing about being away training all of the time – you don't really get enough things to create a mess with. It's a great strategy for keeping your mom from being on your case about cleaning up," I joked. I was surprised when she laughed at my lame attempt at a joke though, judging by the way Gary raised his eyebrows at her laughter, he was even more surprised. I couldn't help but feel happy when she laughed.

Gary made himself at home in my desk chair and began flipping through one of the books Mom had gotten me for Christmas. I'm not much of a reader but when I told my mom that I wanted to become a gym leader, she went out and bought me a bunch of really useful books as Christmas gifts to go along with the laptop computer she had bought me. She ended up getting me a book that was kind of like an insanely in-depth Pokedex with stats, attacks, training tips, and information on all of the known pokemon (except for the legendaries and extinct ones); a general trainer's manual, which had strategies for trainers like me who don't have a specialty; a trainer's guide to the Kanto region which had listings of all of the pokemon gyms (all fifteen of them) plus the gym leaders, lists of commonly found pokemon in each of the different areas, information about the cities, and a ton of maps; a book called _Five-thousand Fascinating Facts About Pokemon_, which had really random (and weird) facts about different pokemon; and a study guide for each of the tests Professor Oak had named for me to take. Gary had been really surprised to find a stack of books on my bed when he came over the day after Christmas to help me set up my laptop and had been even more surprised to see that several of them were in fact study guides. He didn't seem at all surprised when I told him I was taking those tests in order to become a gym leader; it seemed as though he had sort of expected that.

As I was packing some of the new pairs of jeans I had bought on the hellish mall outing with Mom when I noticed that Chelsea had made her way over to my bookshelf and was looking at the various badges, trophies, and ribbons displayed there.

"I'm impressed, Ash," she said and I could feel a grin spread across my face. "This is an incredible amount of… _stuff_." I could almost sense Gary rolling his eyes without even looking at him. "Gary said earlier that you were thinking of becoming a gym leader?"

"Yeah, I am – I have the study guides for the tests and everything," I told her, not noticing as I missed my bag entirely and dropped a handful of t-shirts on the ground.

"The League should just hand you a gym with this many accomplishments; to hell with the tests and the entire region and all of that shit!"

I grinned goofily again and almost tripped over the rug as I made my way over to my desk to grab the trainer's manual for the six hour drive to Pastoria. "Jeez, Ash, you're being more of a spazz than usual," Gary muttered without glancing up from the book he had picked up. I moved to hit him in the back of the head but Chelsea beat me to it and hit him far harder than I would have. "Ow! You fucking harpy!" He yelped, rubbing the place where she had hit. I almost felt bad for him but had to remind myself, friend or not, Gary often deserved getting hit.

"Sorry, Ash, but Gary here needs a good smack or ass-beating every once in awhile to keep him in line." Chelsea must have read my mind.

I liked this girl. The more she said or did, the more I liked her. I hoped I got to ride in the same car as her tomorrow, I got the idea that being in a car with her would make a six hour drive that much more bearable. Even though Gary and I were friends again, I doubted we could survive six hours in a car together… Especially not with Gary's driving – that boy seriously scared the crap out of me behind the wheel.

--- --- ---

"I take it you're going to Sinnoh as well, Ash?" Professor Oak asked as I walked into the kitchen with May later that night.

"Yep, Gary didn't have to twist my arm too hard," I replied as I pulled a can of soda out of the fridge.

"Well, I'm glad to see you here; I wanted to talk to you about something." Uh oh. What did I do?

"Okay, what about?"

Professor Oak sat down at the kitchen table and gestured for me to sit down across from him. "Since you'll be in Pallet for a few months before heading off on another journey, I wondered if you'd be interested in working in the lab."

Working in the lab? "What would I do in the lab, Professor? I don't know anything about science!"

He laughed a little. "You don't have to be a researcher to work in a lab, Ash. I was thinking of having you help out Tracey with the pokemon on the reserve; you could get some experience working with other pokemon and you can get an idea of the power some of them have – get an idea of what ones you might want to find in the wild." I guess that sounded like a good idea. "You would be letting them out of their pokeballs, feeding them, helping Tracey and May groom and do first aid on them. Nothing too difficult and you would get paid for it too. You could train in the mornings and then work in the afternoon, or the other way around."

"I guess so," I said slowly, thinking over everything he had just said. There wasn't really any reason not to accept it, especially since Kate would be going back to school in a few weeks. "I'll do it." I said after a minute of thinking.

"Great, I'll show you everything when you kids come back from Pastoria. The boys and Chelsea will be too busy settling in to really do anything so I'm sure that will be the best time to get you used to the lab and the pokemon there."

"Okay," I said. At least I'd have something to do while I was home… And I'd be able to save up money for traveling through Kanto again, which would at least be useful.

--- --- ---

I ended up stuck in the car with Gary on the way to Sinnoh and, although we spent a lot of time bickering on the drive, we actually managed to have some decent conversation without him biting my head off. When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of a trainer I'd met (and battled against in the competition in October) named Abby. The interesting part was that she was apparently Andrew's little sister. She was a fifteen-year-old from Pastoria and had been training to become a fire-type gym leader here in Sinnoh; she was a tough trainer and I respected her for that. She was cool though and, since she was staying with Andrew, we got a few days to hang out and share training stories. I found out she was heading to the Orange Islands after the New Year and I told her about my plans to become a gym leader. Before she left half way through our visit, we planned to meet up sometime after she finished in the Orange Islands and after I competed. It was nice to know that I would have a traveling buddy once I was ready to travel again, especially since I knew that Misty and Brock were too busy with their gyms to help me this time around.

All in all, I wish I had more to say about Sinnoh. Not much happened until the day we were leaving, which is when I finally got up the nerve to ask Gary to help me train. We were running late on everything humanly possible that day, Chelsea and Shawn were finishing up packing at the time we were supposed to be leaving and Gary was pretty pissed about it. In the end we went to a diner to meet Andrew and Tracey for lunch – they were late of course, but I couldn't exactly complain.

In the time that Gary left to call Andrew and find out why he was so late in meeting us for lunch, I managed to think of what to say and I'd say I was prepared to suck up enough to get him to agree to it. He was scowling when he sat back down. "Andrew and Trace are going to be awhile," he hissed in annoyance. My mind was on other things so I only nodded and kept playing with the napkin that was in front of me to pass time. "You're being quiet today. What's up? You're usually talking enough to make me want to kill you."

I smiled; I couldn't really argue that point because I was usually talking nonstop to annoy him in the first place. "I've been thinking –"

"Oh, that explains it," Gary interrupted and I rolled my eyes. Here comes the sarcasm. "You must have the migraine from hell by now," he finished with a grin. I laughed and grabbed a roll from the basket on the table and threw it at him. Gary caught it and laughed softly. "I was just going to ask you for one of these – you must've been reading my mind."

I grimaced at that. With the way he and Anna were all touchy-feely with each other, I really did _not_ want to read his mind at any time. "I don't even want to know what goes on in your head – and I don't have a headache, you idiot!"

Gary rolled his eyes; I swear I've never met anyone who rolls their eyes as much as he does. "Will you just tell what's been keep you occupied enough to shut that massive mouth of yours?" Gary asked. "I'll have to write it down and bring it up whenever you start getting on my nerves," he added under his breath. I was almost tempted to throw another piece of bread at him.

"I talked to Professor Oak about what it takes to become a gym leader." Might as well stop beating around the bush and get right to it while he was still being fairly nice.

"Yeah, you told me. The day after Christmas, remember?"

Of course I remembered, he'd actually felt the need to check that I didn't have a fever when I said that I was planning on taking the tests sometime within the next few months. I swear he's the most annoying person I've ever met. "I remember."

"Well? What about it?" Gary asked.

"There's a lot of stuff you have to do for it," I began slowly.

"Imagine that," Gary muttered sarcastically. I glared at him and he rolled his eyes again. "Fine, I'll take the bait – what type of 'stuff' do you have to do?"

I began naming off some of the requirements. "Well, you have to collect all of the badges in the territory you want to be a leader, you have to place in the top four of one of the major competitions –"

"If you train hard enough, you might be able to do that part this year, you know." Gee, where had I heard that part before?

"Shut up, Gary, I'll get there in a minute." I wanted to tell him exactly how much stuff I had to do before I brought up training for the competition. "You also have to pass the league exams on –"

"Pokemon training, wild behavior, attacks, evolution, and morphology; I know. And I already told you – they're easy." I remembered that too; he had felt the need to inform me of his nearly perfect score on each of the exams. Of course the bookworm would be the one to miss only one or two questions. "Is there anything else?"

"You have to have at least one hundred pokemon species that you've trained personally, including evolutions, and that's it. I already have about seventy-five and I'll be redoing Kanto after the Pokemon League competition up at the Plateau in May so that shouldn't be so bad."

"Not to mention the growlithe pups that are due in like a week; you can get one once their old enough to leave their mother." Gary pointed out. I hadn't thought of that – growlithe were great pokemon and it would be really cool to raise one from a puppy. "And then you'll probably be able to get an eevee with this project that we'll be starting on." Yet another thing I didn't think of. "Maybe Grandpa will let you have a few and you can evolve them – if you can handle them, that is. Eevees tend to be a bit demonic; you should've seen Umbreon when I first got her, I was tempted to bring her to a priest and have her exorcised."

I laughed at that. Umbreon was as stubborn as her trainer, I could only imagine how she would have been untamed. It was an amusing mental image. "I managed Pikachu, I think I can handle an eevee," I pointed out to him. Eevees didn't have the ability to use thundershock – Pikachu did and I'd survived our first few days together.

"Good luck with that," Gary replied sarcastically. He paused and looked as though he were thinking over something. "Mating season starts soon too, you could score a _ton_ of new pokemon," he mused. "The rattata breed like crazy and so do most of the grass types. The nidoran evolutions tend to be pretty horny as well." I already knew that from seeing some… _interesting_ behavior between those pokemon on visits to the lab. Figures Gary would bring that up.

"Well, they do have a bunch of little horns on their body, it's a little hard not to be," I joked.

He stared at me for a minute as though he were trying to figure out what I was talking about. He caught on and laughed softly. "That's not what I meant." I was surprised he didn't roll his eyes; he probably deserved a pat on the head for that, of course that would mess up his hair and he would flip out about it.

"I know what you meant," I said flatly. I had to say something that I knew he wasn't exactly going to like. "I'm going to be working at the lab so I can see what types of pokemon are there and pick out the ones I want."

"Yeah," he said calmly. I wondered if he had even realized what I had just said. "Wait a second, rewind." Now he had caught on. "You're going to be _what_?" He didn't sound too happy.

"Professor Oak offered me a job in the lab as an assistant like Tracey," I explained. "Just until I leave for the competition in May and then for Kanto. Um, there's something else too." I had to ask him to help me train and I was certain he was going to say no.

"What?"

"Well… Your grandfather said I should ask you to, um, to help me train for the competition," I said quietly.

"Why?"

"Because he thinks it would be good for you." That wasn't a lie either, the professor had asked me if I'd talked to him about training the night before we left for Pastoria and he had used that reasoning. "And because you're a good trainer," I added. I've known Gary since we were kids, I know the best way to get him to do anything is to appeal to his ego.

His first reaction was, unsurprisingly, to roll his eyes; then he stopped and actually thought about it. He was quiet for a few minutes while I was stuck just sitting there fidgeting and playing with my napkin until he finally responded.

"Fine," he said finally. "I'll help you."

Yes! I could only manage a grin before we were interrupted by Andrew, Tracey, and Chelsea suddenly appearing at our table.

"Help with what?" Andrew asked.

"About time you got here, you were only supposed to be here half an hour ago!" Gary snapped at him. "And I'm going to help Ash train for the Pokemon League competition in May. Chelsea, I thought you were packing?"

Andrew and Chelsea said something about packing up the cars before Chelsea turned to me. "Are you competing at the Indigo Plateau, Ash?" She asked and I nodded in response. "Oh cool! I competed a few years back – well, more than a few. Made it to the third round with nine badges. The badges don't have an expiration date do they?" I laughed at her question; it was interesting to hear badges referred to as though they were some sort of perishable food.

"The badges are good for ten years if you're a gym leader; you have to battle for them again after ten years. But if you're just a trainer then they're always good," I explained. I had asked Professor Oak the same thing.

"Sweet," she replied. _Sweet?_ Where was this heading? "I'll help you train; I'd actually like to go compete again, I think it'd be fun." My stomach knotted up in excitement at that. "What do you say, Gary?"

I'd almost forgotten about Gary; he stared at her for a minute as though he was still trying to comprehend what had just happened. "What do I say about what?" he asked. "You competing?"

"Yeah!"

"Uh, have fun, I guess." Gary replied in a way that sounded almost like a question.

Andrew laughed and spoke up. "I never got to go to the competition, I'd been training for three years and I had eleven badges when I ended up back here in Pastoria." Gary had told me on the ride up to Sinnoh that Andrew had once been a trainer in the Kanto region, apparently he had beaten Gary in a battle once. I could just imagine how mad Gary must have been when that happened, considering the way he acted back then. "I think it would be kinda cool for all of us to compete against each other." What just happened here?

"You're going to compete too?" Gary asked, sounding pretty surprised and a bit annoyed.

"Yeah, why not?" Andrew asked. I couldn't help but grin again; it looked like we were going to have a training group over the next few months. I wondered if he and Chelsea were going to try talking Gary into competing too; I kind of hoped he would, it would be fun but I didn't have any idea how he'd handle the whole thing. Gary had already admitted to me that he had began cutting himself after he lost in the Kanto League competition when he was twelve and then he'd never really been the same as a trainer after that. His heart wasn't in it and it probably never would be.

"You haven't trained in six years!" Gary pointed out to Andrew.

"And? Neither has Chels. Hell, _you_ haven't even trained in four years!"

Gary rolled his eyes and turned to Tracey. "Don't tell me you're planning on jumping on this bandwagon," he demanded.

Tracey smiled calmly. "Gary, I have three pokemon and no badges. How would I possibly compete?" he asked reasonably. Figures he would be the one to stay calm and quiet throughout this whole time while Gary was freaking out over Chelsea and Andrew's decisions.

I grinned at Gary, perhaps it was time for me to try my hand at this. "Come on, Gary! You know you wanna compete with us too!" He ignored me.

"Or are you too much of a pussy to do it?" Andrew taunted. I wish I had thought to say that, picking on Gary always got things done.

Gary surprisingly stayed perfectly calm. "I am not a pussy."

"Chicken," I teased. That did the trick.

"You know what, fine!" Gary exclaimed suddenly. "I'll compete too – happy now?" He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the rest of us.

"Boy, that didn't take much convincing," I said with a grin. This was going to be awesome – competing with my first rival and two new friends. It was going to be interesting and I was curious to see how Andrew and Chelsea were as trainers.

"Shut up, Ash!" Gary snapped at me; my grin widened and I couldn't help but laugh. It was funny to see him get annoyed with me and I had a feeling it was something that was going to happen fairly often with me working in the lab and Gary helping me train.

"Pop a Midol, Gary." Andrew said as I was still laughing at the irritated expression on Gary's face.

"Screw you!"

"Don't tempt me, you know I will," Andrew said with a wink. I didn't want to know what he was talking about.

"I doubt you have anything left in you to do that with how much time you and Tracey spent in your room this morning," Chelsea spoke up. I think this would be an excellent time to start tuning out, especially considering the way Tracey suddenly blushed and Gary laughed. I was beginning to really want to get back home to Pallet.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Challenge**

Chapter 5

Have you ever had one of those instances where you just want to strangle someone? Well, that's what I felt like doing to Gary.

He'd apparently meant it when he said he'd help me train – here we were, the second day back in Pallet at nine in the morning and running through the woods with Chelsea and Umbreon. I was not happy. First of all, I'd been woken up an hour early and, on top of that, I hadn't eaten yet and it was freezing cold outside with five inches of snow on the ground while I was wearing gym shorts and sneakers. I'm in pretty good shape from walking so much but running is a different story entirely – running in the snowy woods is another story as well. By now I had run enough to be exhausted and I was either too hot from running to be affected by the cold or I was just becoming numb.

Gary and Chelsea, well, they weren't fazed in the slightest. Here I was, wearing two shirts and a hoodie, freezing my behind off, while Chelsea was wearing these tight cropped pants and a thin fleece jacket and Gary was dressed the same as me but obviously wasn't cold. I wasn't sure how long we had been running but my legs were cramping, my throat was burning, and my nose was running. I needed a break.

Groaning, I slowed to a stop and bent down with my hands on my knees. "Chelsea!" Slightly ahead of me, she stopped, looked at me, and checked her watch. She raised her eyebrows slightly but turned and called for Gary to stop as she walked backwards towards me. Gary was quite a bit further ahead of us with Umbreon and looked annoyed when he turned around and came over to us.

"You're kidding me, right?" he asked. Umbreon looked confused as she sat down in the snow at Gary's feet when he stopped next to Chelsea.

Gary showed Chelsea his mp3 player and she laughed. "Congratulations, Ash; you've made it halfway through the longest Adagio song in existence."

"Huh?" I was still gasping for breath while they both looked smug.

"We've been running for less than ten minutes, you pussy," Gary informed me.

"How much longer?"

Gary closed his eyes for a moment; I'm surprised he didn't roll them. He glanced at Chelsea when he finally opened his eyes again. "We'll go to the cemetery and turn back; we're already halfway there," he muttered with an annoyed expression.

"Gee, Gary, you're being generous – I thought you were going to drag him all the way through the woods."

I groaned. God, I hated this. "What's the idea behind this?" I asked, trying my hardest not to whine.

"A pokemon is only as good as the trainer," Chelsea said. "If you expect your pokemon to be able to run around and do powerful attacks that require a lot of energy, it's only fair for you as their trainer to be able to keep up in some way. Give it a few weeks and you'll be able to run through these woods pretty easily. Once you build up your stamina, you can start running with your pokemon and that'll help them," she explained.

"How does running with me help them in a battle?"

"It gives them more stamina, then they can last longer in battles," Gary spoke up before turning around and setting off with Umbreon again.

I glanced uneasily at Chelsea. "He doesn't seem to be enjoying this very much."

"Gary doesn't like running in the cold and he's used to being able to run faster and for a longer time," she told me.

"Great, so I'm pissing him off in two ways at once?"

"Yep. Come on, you baby!" She took off running with me struggling to catch up again. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate this?

--- --- ---

"That's it?"

I had to wince at the way Gary asked that question. I had just shown him the pokemon I had caught in Sinnoh and I was a bit under the impression that he was unimpressed. "What do mean 'that's it'?" I snapped defensively. "Just because I don't have two hundred pokemon, I'm automatically second-rate? Who was it that made it further in the League competitions?!"

Gary simply crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the shelf in the lab where all of my pokeballs were kept. I hated how he was glaring down at me. "Ash," he began through clenched teeth. It was nice to see that I was getting on his nerves for once and not the other way around. "You've been through _five_ training regions! How the hell do you only have seventy-three pokemon species? You should have been able to get that many in Kanto alone!"

"That says a lot, coming from an overachiever like you," I muttered sarcastically. Gary was beginning to wear on my last nerve after the running and then the way he and Chelsea had dragged me around the entire reserve to "walk off" the cramps in my legs. I'm still convinced they were just torturing me – how else do you explain making me run?

"Forget it. Pick your three best pokemon."

Huh? Talk about a sudden change. "What?" Gary repeated himself with a sigh. "Why?"

"Just do it!" he called over his shoulder as he headed over to a different set of shelves that I'm certain contained all of his pokemon.

I glanced down at Pikachu, who had joined us after we returned from the torture of the morning. He looked up at me with a happy expression on his furry little face and I couldn't help but smile – of course he was my first choice. I glanced back at the shelf with a small frown, trying to decide which ones were my best; I didn't know which to choose after Pikachu. I could hear Gary's footsteps approaching again so I ended grabbing Bulbasaur and Staravia's pokeballs as Gary appeared with Umbreon at his side and two balls in hand.

"You're in luck, Arcanine's out on the reserve somewhere," he said with a smirk. Oh, I get it. A battle with our top pokemon – I really didn't expect him to start battling so early but I guess he had to jump right into it to get back into training before the conference.

I followed him out of the lab and towards a clear area a bit away from the building. "So I take it we're doing a three-on-three battle," I said, more of a statement than a question. Gary only nodded as he gestured for me to stay where I was before walking a few more yards.

He turned and faced me with a small smirk. "Your move," was all he said.

I glanced over at Pikachu, who was sitting on my shoulder; my starting pokemon in this battle was an easy choice. "Okay, Pikachu, you're up first."

"No." I looked up as Gary spoke and saw him shaking his head. "What?"

"Save your best pokemon for last – it's best to start with the weaker ones so that they get experience and then switch to the more powerful ones. I would think that you would have learned that by now," he said flatly.

I rolled my eyes and looked down at Pikachu who looked thoroughly confused. "Sorry, buddy; you'll get your chance later. Staravia!" I released the bird from his pokeball and grinned as he flew around me happily.

Gary smirked and silently released his first pokemon. Yellow and brown, long ears, spoons – Alakazam. I wasn't expecting that, I didn't even realize that Gary had one. Alakazam looked slightly confused as it turned to Gary but turned back to Staravia looking ready to battle.

"Staravia evolves somewhere in the thirties, Ashy – Alakazam's at a much higher level than that."

Staravia hovered in front of me and shot an annoyed look at Gary. It was my turn to smirk – so he thought I'd never bothered to look up the pokemon that I had already captured, huh? I at least knew the general stats and learnsets of my pokemon by now; I'd started looking at that stuff during the Battle Frontier. Gary could look as smug as he wanted to; he was only looking at the species, not at the possible level.

"Staravia, let's show Gary that evolution isn't everything! Brave Bird!" Staravia flew up high suddenly and I grinned as the smirk slid off of Gary's face. Staravia could have evolved more than ten levels ago and I was betting Gary hadn't counted on this as Staravia went into a dive and became enveloped in flames. Alakazam seemed to brace itself as the fire disappeared and was replaced by a blue glow.

"Teleport!" Alakazam disappeared just before Staravia would have hit it, leaving him to skid across the ground painfully. I knew Brave Bird hit the pokemon with a recoil but that landing did a lot more damage than the attack would have. "Psychic!" Alakazam raised it's spoons and Staravia was suddenly glowing blue again as he was lifted higher into the air before being slammed back into the ground. I winced as Staravia struggled to get back up; that was definitely one of the more powerful psychic attacks I've seen in awhile which meant that Alakazam was probably a few levels higher than my pokemon still.

"Shake it off, Staravia – use Aerial Ace!"

"Double Team, now!"

I saw Staravia hesitate and warily look over the large amount of opponents that had suddenly appeared and gritted my teeth. This wasn't going good so far. "Focus, Staravia; try to figure out which one is the real one." Having him attack each of them would just wear him down when he had already suffered a lot of damage.

"Use Psybeam!" The Alakazams disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared, leaving one with it's spoons crossed; Staravia quickly ascended in the sky but the beam had already been shot at him. I watched helplessly as the beam came closer to Staravia but he dodged it at last minute before swooping in and slamming into Alakazam, knocking it slightly off balance.

"Quick, use Wing Attack!" Staravia flew away just enough to get a good angle before landing a good attack. Alakazam was finally starting to weaken a bit and I smiled, starting to feel confident.

"Recover." I watched in horror as Alakazam glowed yellow before returning to normal – I had finally gotten in some damage and now that didn't matter.

"Use Fly!" I called to Staravia, knowing that Alakazam had to gain back some energy before he could attack again. Staravia flew up high and I could see Gary wince; I was betting that his pokemon didn't have enough energy to use Double Team so soon after Recover. Alakazam dodged the attack at last minute and used another Psychic before Staravia could get out of the way and he was slammed back into the ground. "Come on, Staravia, shake it off, you're doing great!" Staravia started to get back up but fell back to the ground in a heap. I looked up at Gary in shock – he hadn't trained in_ four_ years and he had just managed to take out one of my more powerful pokemon. It just wasn't fair! "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered as I recalled Staravia.

"Alakazam, return." I glanced over at Gary again, this time out of confusion as he recalled his pretty-much uninjured pokemon. I hesitated to see what he would send out and I was surprised when he looked down at Umbreon, who was standing at his side. "Have fun," he said simply and Umbreon bounded out to the middle of the area behind us.

"Pika?"

"Not yet, buddy; remember what Gary said? You're my best so I'm saving you for last." I didn't want to get on Gary's nerves again, god forbid he and Chelsea drag me out running again as punishment. "I choose Bulbasaur!" I cried as I threw out the pokeball. I knew Umbreon was powerful and fast from previous experience; I'd have to hope that Bulbasaur's attacks could stand up to her. "Bulbasaur, start off with Razor Leaf!"

Gary didn't even have to tell Umbreon what to do; she bounced back and forth between the leaves, looking as though she were having the time of her life. This could be an interesting battle; even Gary seemed to think so, judging by the amused look on his face.

"Umbreon, stop playing around – Quick Attack!" Umbreon gave two or three final bounces between leaves before going into her attack and all I saw was a streak of black before she hit Bulbasaur hard enough to knock him back several feet.

"Use Vine Whip!" One of Bulbasaur's vines whipped near Umbreon's head but she ducked quickly; the second vine managed to hit her, stunning her slightly just long enough for Bulbasaur to get in a few more lightning-fast hits.

"Bite the vines, Umbreon!" Bulbasaur gave a yelp of pain as her jaws closed around one of the vines. This was actually kind of convenient considering how close the two pokemon were…

"Use Solarbeam!"

"Shadow Ball!" Umbreon jumped away from Bulbasaur and opened her mouth to form a black ball of energy as Bulbasaur was firing up his own attack.

"Hurry up, Bulbasaur!" As soon as I said it, both pokemon released their attacks. The beam of light and the ball struck each other, causing a small explosion that sent up a cloud of snow and dirt. The cloud cleared and both pokemon had taken damage though they were still standing strong. "Take Down!" Bulbasaur immediately charged but Umbreon stood her ground, lowering herself into a crouch position as though she were about to dodge the attack. She jumped over Bulbasaur as he came at her, leaving him to skid across the ground slightly as he turned and charged again. Umbreon wasn't so lucky this time and was knocked off of her feet by the force of the hit. "Double Edge, Bulbasaur, come on!"

"Skull Bash, Umbreon!"

Umbreon barely had time to climb to her feet before Bulbasaur came charging once more; not having enough time or room for her own attack, she dodged and ran a few feet away before running at Bulbasaur. I winced at the sound of the two pokemon hitting each other and knew that Bulbasaur had taken some serious damage. He slowly shook the attack off and climbed to his feet, looking worn down; I knew he couldn't battle much longer.

"Leech Seed!" I called out in desperation, hoping it would work and give Bulbasaur a little more energy.

Gary shook his head and I wondered if he was getting bored; he definitely wasn't into battling like he used to be. It was unnerving to see that particular change in him. "Quick Attack," he said almost lazily. Umbreon dodged the seeds and nailed Bulbasaur with her attack – this time my pokemon didn't get up.

I recalled Bulbasaur and sighed. There was no way I was going to lose this battle, not against someone who technically wasn't even a trainer anymore, even if he had been my earliest rival. "Okay, Pikachu, your turn."

"Alakazam, you're up again." I groaned as Gary tossed out the pokeball and almost laughed at the glare Umbreon sent his way as she stalked back towards him.

Pikachu scampered forward with sparks flying from his cheeks; he was eager to battle. "Volt Tackle!" I wanted to end this on my terms and I was down to my last pokemon while Gary's were all in good health, though Umbreon was looking pretty exhausted as she sat next to Gary panting. Pikachu nailed him before Gary could even call out an attack. "Thunderbolt!" Alakazam fell to the ground after the attack was over and Gary recalled it calmly and tossed out his other pokeball.

Blastoise appeared with a small roar and I frowned. Gary knew I would choose Pikachu so why the heck would he choose a pokemon that's weak against electricity?

"Hydro Pump!"

"Quick Attack then Volt Tackle!" Pikachu used his first attack to dodge the blast of water that came from Blastoise's hydrocannons and the second attack hit hard, unsurprisingly.

"Earthquake, Blastoise!" The pokemon suddenly jumped in the air and landed hard enough to send shock waves throughout the ground, knocking Pikachu off of his feet and dealing considerable damage.

"Hang in there, buddy – give him a good Thunderbolt!" Pikachu took a moment to charge himself and, in that time, Gary ordered a Rapid Spin attack that Pikachu barely dodged before jumping up on Blastoise's shoulder and unleashing his attack. I felt my heart jump as Blastoise fell over and didn't get back up – we were tied now. "How about you give up, Gary?" I teased, knowing it would annoy the hell out of him. "Four years without training is making your pokemon lose their touch!"

I could see Umbreon's fur bristle and was pretty surprised to hear a low growl come from her. Gary only laughed. "Just remember that you didn't win anything until you called out Pikachu and, while I've been busy for the past four years, you've been training nonstop. There's a reason Pikachu took out two of my strongest pokemon; go on, Umbreon."

Instead of running out like she did last time, Umbreon slinked forward with her fur still raised slightly – I got the idea she was pretty pissed at me for my comment.

"Careful, Pikachu," I warned. There was no way Umbreon was going to be nice in this battle, not with the way she circled Pikachu with soft growls.

"Knock it off, 'Bre! First move, Ash!" Umbreon stopped growling but kept circling after looking back at Gary for a moment.

I thought for a moment; I wanted to have a good battle, but I also wanted to beat Gary, which meant that I would have to start off with something strong.

"Pick a move before Umbreon does!"

"Iron Tail!" Pikachu jumped in the air to attack and Umbreon dodged it easily. "Agility – wear her down!"

"Good luck with that," Gary spoke up sarcastically. "Umbreon's been running with me almost every day for nearly four years now; Pikachu'll pass out before Umbreon starts getting tired."

So much for that idea. "Volt Tackle then Iron Tail again!" Pikachu charged at her and barely managed to place a hit with the tackle attack though Iron Tail struck one of her back legs powerfully. I could see Gary wince at the hit before he commanded a quick attack. "Dodge it with your own Quick Attack, Pikachu!" Umbreon was too fast and struck Pikachu easily, sending him flying backwards a few feet.

"Bite!" Pikachu barely managed to dodge the attack.

"Pikachu, use Slam!" Umbreon was still regaining her footing after the missed attack when Pikachu slammed into her and knocked her down with a small whimper. I felt bad when I saw her give Gary a pained looked.

"Hang in there, girl; you're doing fine – use Pursuit!" Umbreon bounded back to her feet managed to land a hard hit before I could do anything. "Shadow Ball!"

"Pikachu, Thunder!" The attacks hit and the resulting explosion was much larger than the one from Shadow Ball and Solarbeam; Pikachu managed to escape unscathed but Umbreon stood shakily after the dust cleared. She looked like she had taken a good shock from the electricity of Pikachu's attack. "Come on, Pikachu, hit her with another Quick Attack!" She hadn't recovered yet from the explosion and Pickachu's quick attack knocked her right back to the ground.

"Enough," Gary said calmly as he stepped forward.

I looked at Gary in shock – was he seriously stopping the battle? "Why? Don't you want to finish?"

"Umbreon's nearly beat; you would have taken her out with a good Thunderbolt," he explained as he kneeled down next to Umbreon, who hadn't bothered to get up yet, despite glaring at Gary for stopping the battle.

I stayed where I was standing, too surprised to move. What had just happened? From what I'd heard, Umbreon was nearly unbeatable and I'd essentially beaten her; that was surprising enough. Gary forfeiting a battle was the real shocker though and it left me feeling strangely depressed.

I no longer had my rival anymore.

Gary was still kneeling in front of Umbreon, stroking her ears and talking to her quietly while I just stood there with Pikachu on my shoulder. I had no idea what to say. Part of me was surprised by the soothing way Gary was talking to his pokemon; I remembered the way he had scoffed at me when I mentioned all of my pokemon being my friends so many years ago. The way he was acting didn't add up to that old rival I once disliked so much; of course he had changed as a trainer after losing at the Indigo Plateau, but this was just… almost disturbing. Something must have showed on my face because Gary's expression changed to one of questioning as he glanced up at me after he stood and Umbreon stalked off towards a wooded area near the lake.

"Is she okay?" I asked nervously.

Gary smiled slightly. "You know how Grandpa always says that pokemon take after their trainers?" I nodded slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. "He always says that she's the pokemon version of me – she's just upset that she lost and mad that I wouldn't let her finish the battle."

"Why didn't you let them finish?"

He shrugged at that. "I knew the battle was finished; she was already worn down from battling your bulbasaur and Pikachu's really powerful." He reached up and scratched Pikachu behind the ears, eliciting a content squeak. "He's more powerful every time I see him – he must be somewhere around level sixty at least."

I grinned at the compliment. "Sixty-three actually," I corrected him. "What about Umbreon? She's pretty powerful herself."

"Fifty-one when I stopped training but I know she gained a few levels on Sayda Island and from playing around with Arcanine and the houndoom here, so she's probably around fifty-seven now. Alakazam's forty-five, along with most of my pokemon but Blastoise is around sixty."

"Which is really impressive since you only trained for four years," I muttered. I was impressed but a bit annoyed that I had been training for almost eight years to get this far. "Hey, should Umbreon be going in the woods by herself?" I asked as I watched her disappear into the wooded area that she had been heading towards.

Gary didn't look the slightest bit worried. "That's where the houndoom and houndours stay; we've got a good sized pack now and Umbreon likes being with them –"

"Isn't that dangerous?" I asked, thinking of how territorial and vicious the dogs could be.

"No, not considering I caught the alpha male and female houndoom as houndours in Johto. A few of the others are mine too but there are some from other trainers so they bred and formed a pack here. Umbreon's actually dominant over them because of her level." That actually sounded pretty cool; I didn't know the pokemon would do that here in on the reserve, especially not with pokemon from other trainers and different places.

"Can I see them?"

Gary nodded and turned towards the distant trees. "Come on, we'll talk on the way over."

I followed him with a side glance at Pikachu, who looked a bit nervous at the thought of going near a large amount of big dogs. "What about?"

"Training, what else?" Gary asked as we walked. "I've already said Pikachu is great but part of that is because you use him more than anyone else. Your staravia and bulbasaur are both good but they need to evolve –"

"No, they don't," I interrupted. My view on evolving had yet to change; it was great when the pokemon wanted to evolve but it wasn't necessarily needed.

"Bulbasaur should at least evolve into an ivysaur –"

"We are not getting into this discussion, Gary," I said firmly, stopping so that he had to turn and face me to keep talking.

"You need to have a hundred species; evolving your pokemon not only improves their stats and enables them to learn more moves but increases your species count. You still need almost thirty new pokemon – are you going to count on catching them all as you travel through Kanto?"

"I don't have to catch them all in Kanto; remember what you told me in Pastoria?"

He sighed and resumed the trek towards the trees ahead of us. "Yes, I remember. I just don't see why you're doing it the hard way," he replied sounding tired. I hoped he was going to drop that subject. "What about your others?"

"All of my pokemon are good –"

"Not good enough if I can still beat them –"

"I've beaten a lot of trainers with my weakest pokemon, Gary," I snapped. He stopped walking and turned once more, meeting my eyes coolly. "And in case you've already forgotten, I just beat you! I think I already know what I'm doing; I just need someone to battle with me so that my pokemon and I can win!" Gary looked mildly surprised by my outburst; hell, _I_ was surprised by it. "I don't need you criticizing me just because you can – just help me level up my pokemon and give me tips on building good teams and then worry about yourself!"

Gary simply met my eyes for a minute as though he wasn't entirely sure of what to say; either that or he was trying to come up with an insult. He shrugged and continued walking. "Fine then," he said perfectly calmly.

I stayed where I was and watched the distance between us grow greater. That was all he had to say? No arguing, no insulting, nothing? I may have hated Gary as an arrogant jerk but I least he was consistent back then. He'd had my head spinning nonstop since I'd gotten back to Pallet nearly a month ago.

"Wait," I called after him and ran to catch up. "That's it?"

"What is there for me to say? You know my opinions on your pokemon and training style and I respect your opinions enough to not push mine on you." _Respect_? That was certainly a word I couldn't recall Gary ever using when talking to me.

"Yeah, but… Aren't you going to argue with me or call me a loser or something?"

Gary spun around suddenly to face me with narrowed eyes. I'd hit a weak spot, it seemed. "In case the long hair, piercings, and scars weren't enough to get it through your thick skull: I've changed." Something in his expression softened as he looked me over. "If you want a rival, you'll have to find someone else, Ash. I'll help you train and I'll compete with you and Chelsea and Andrew because I said I would but you need to realize that I'm not a trainer anymore. You said you wanted to be friends again and I've been trying but if you keep up this whole whiney 'I want a rival' thing then I'm not even going to bother because it isn't fair to me. Got it?"

By this time my eyes had managed to focus only on the ground next to my feet. I hadn't thought about things exactly that way – as long as I had known him, Gary had been involved with pokemon and had wanted to be a trainer as badly as I did. I had figured that he'd agreed to help me because he still enjoyed training, even if he didn't devote his life to it. Looking back up at him, I was still confused. He had changed more than I could have imagined and more than I wanted to believe or accept. I knew I had changed; I'd become a bit more mature, I'd started being a more serious trainer, but I wondered if I needed to change more. I finally nodded in response to Gary's question and was once more surprised as he grinned.

"Good. Let's go pick out new pokemon and battle a bit more." I watched him head back towards the lab and sighed before following him. I guess I would have to wait to see the houndoom pack…

"Are you as confused as I am, buddy?" I asked Pikachu as we followed Gary. He nodded in response with soft coo. It was nice to know I wasn't the only one who felt that way.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Challenge**

I was starting to think of abandoning this story since I've become so wrapped up in _BTW_ and _Secrets Told_ but after seeing that _certain_ people seemed t really enjoy it, I've decided to continue it – thanks snailsgomoo!!! Anyway, I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. I don't know how often I'll be able to update this but I will certainly try to do it more often than I have so far!

By the way, reading through the first few chapters, I noticed a bunch of mistakes from when I switched the original version of this story to third person and then back to first person so I'm working on fixing those. Nothing major, just some little things that might make reading a bit easier.

Chapter 6

It's amazing how hot you can get when there is snow on the ground; I had never really noticed this until I began working with Gary, Chelsea, and Andrew, but there must be something about battling that makes it happen. I didn't know and I had to admit that I didn't exactly care too much either. We battled every day except on the weekends; each day started by running with Gary and Chelsea, then we would work in the lab, and then when we were done, that's when we would battle.

I had been working in the lab for a little over a week when Chelsea came over to me with a strange smile on her face. Unsure of what to think of her smile, I glanced her over, noticing that she was wearing a trainer's belt with six pokeballs attached to it. I couldn't help grinning at that sight. "Have all of your pokemon come in yet?" I asked, remembering her saying something about Professor Ivy sending her pokemon over during this week.

"Yep, just got the last few in a little while ago."

"Can you show me?" I was, perhaps, just a wee bit excited. Nothing wrong with that, right?

She laughed and ran her fingers over the pokeballs at her waist while her smile seemed to turn into something more like a smirk. "Slow the train down a bit there, Ashy-boy," she began teasingly. I felt my face grow a bit hot at the sound of that annoying nickname Gary gave me; it wasn't exactly entirely unpleasant when she was the one saying it… "We've got all day, sweetheart; why not battle a bit first?"

Battling a pretty girl that I had, by now, admitted to having a crush on was definitely a good idea in my mind. It was already noon, which meant that Gary would soon be dragging me outside for a few good battles. "Sounds good to me!" God, I hoped that didn't sound as stupid as I think it did…

"Christ, Chelsea; it's training, not sex – you don't need the foreplay!" I could almost feel myself deflate; of course Gary could be counted on to kill the moment. I turned to reply but he cut me off before I could even open my mouth. "Pick out your four favorite pokemon regardless of battling ability."

I stopped and thought for a minute about which pokemon I would use for today and frowned. We had spent a lot of time working on building teams based on what the other trainer was expected to use, something I wasn't exactly the best at and something Gary had a knack for. "Wait, what type of pokemon are _you_ using?" I asked him

He grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Who said you were battling me?"

I glanced at Chelsea, who was smirking slightly, and then looked back at Gary. "What type of team am I supposed to be building?"

Gary frowned for a minute as though he were thinking of how to explain something to me. "Think of this as a practice battle," he finally began. "Where you're just trying to get a feel for what your opponent's specialty is."

"But I already know that you don't have a specialty, Gary," I pointed out. Not to mention I knew what a lot of his pokemon were by now.

He shook his head and I was confused. "Again, I never said you were battling me."

What? "Then who am I battling?"

Chelsea's smirk grew wider and Gary laughed softly with another shake of his head. They were clearly onto something that I wasn't and it was starting to annoy me. "If you're not battling Gary, then who _would_ you be battling, Ash?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Oh, now I got it. This was supposed to be the battle she had been talking about a minute ago. But that left one issue – there were only three of us; if I was battling Chelsea, then who was Gary battling? It apparently wasn't important since Gary gave me a pointed look and gestured towards the pokemon storage room, obviously not very willing to stand by and wait on me. With a small sigh, I headed towards the room and was surprised when he followed me.

"Making sure I don't choose Pikachu?" I asked when we were alone the room.

"You're not battling me, so why would I care if you picked your electric rat?"

I groaned loudly and rolled my eyes as I grabbed the pokeball containing Bayleef. I really did not feel like playing guessing games with Gary right now, if ever. "What are you doing in here? I thought you weren't battling…"

As I spoke, the door opened and Andrew entered the room with his usual grin. I turned back to the shelves and continued scanning the pokeballs as Andrew went over to Gary to most likely annoy him, as he was quite good at this – almost as good as Gary was at annoying me. They were bickering as usual, something I was starting to get used to, but I tried to ignore them as I debated between Heracross and Grotle. I eventually settled on Grotle and set about choosing my final pokeball, knowing that my fourth and final pokemon would obviously be none other than Pikachu. It was a tough decision – honestly, choose my favorite pokemon? Didn't Gary realize what a hard task that was for me? I finally settled on picking Cyndaquil before heading back out to the lab to find out wherever Pikachu had wandered off too.

--- --- ---

I could feel excitement welling up inside me as we walked across the reserve to the large flat area where Gary and I usually battled. The excitement was different today and I wasn't sure why – I usually got some butterflies and felt a bit jittery, nothing major, just like I needed to bounce up and down to get rid of extra energy. Today I felt like I needed to run a mile while bouncing; it wasn't nerves, it was genuine excitement but it was stronger than usual. Something about battling a new opponent was making me look forward to today's training session more than usual and it didn't help that the new opponent was a pretty girl who I happened to have a crush on. Gary and Andrew were leading the way while Chelsea walked slightly ahead of me, one of her petite hands resting on her pokeballs as though she couldn't wait to call out her first pokemon.

"Ladies first," Andrew said cheerfully to Chelsea when we reached the area. She rolled her eyes and hit him in the back of the head, something she seemed to do any chance she got.

"You heard him, Ash." I glared at Gary. Have I ever mentioned how _incredibly_ annoying he can be?

We both stepped up and stared at each other for a moment, neither of us really knew what to do – who was supposed to go first, or were we both supposed to send out one of our pokemon at the same time? I didn't know what Gary had in mind for this and, judging by her somewhat blank smile, Chelsea knew about as much as I did. I glanced over at Gary where he was standing with Andrew and Umbreon; I still wasn't entirely sure what Andrew was doing out here. He _had_ agreed to the same thing as Chelsea but I hadn't heard anything about his pokemon yet. He just didn't seem much like a pokemon trainer with his long blonde hair, lip ring, and black fingernail polish.

"What do you want us to do, Gary?" I asked when he didn't say anything.

"Battle, what else?" he asked flatly as if it was obvious. Andrew snickered and even Chelsea smiled at the comment.

"How do you want us to battle?" I reiterated my question shortly.

Gary feigned a thoughtful expression and smirked at me. "Well, with pokemon _would_ be preferable but I suppose you can do it any way you want to."

I groaned and forced down a less-than-polite reply. "Specifics, Gary."

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest as if he had grown bored of this already. "Four pokemon, League rules, however the fuck you want to do it."

I turned back to Chelsea with a slight scowl still on my face and forced a smile; eager to begin battling, I asked her how she wanted to go about choosing who to go first in the battle. We settled on a round of rock paper scissors – she was rock, I was paper.

Laughing, I covered her fist with my open hand and grinned. "I win," I informed her cheerfully. I could hear Gary and Andrew laugh behind us as she smiled at me before turning to head over to her side of the field. I was supposed to go first; send out first pokemon and order first attack. Not knowing the pokemon that Chelsea had, I was unsure of who to send out first. After a moment of thinking, I sent out Bayleef, figuring she would be the best choice unless Chelsea decided to send out a fire pokemon. Even from a distance, I could see the grin that spread across her face as she threw out a pokeball without hesitation. I was a bit surprised to see that her chosen pokemon was Cloyster – wasn't water, or ice, whichever Cloyster was, weak against grass?

I grinned and called the first move – Poisonpowder – while she countered with a quick Supersonic followed by Withdraw. Fortunately, Supersonic didn't have much of an effect while Withdraw did nothing to protect Cloyster from Poisonpowder. He must have been a fairly low level… I really wish I could say more about Cloyster but he went out pretty quickly, all it took after my first attack was a few good Razor Leaf attacks and a strong Body Slam. Chelsea managed a good hit with an Ice Shard move but Bayleef was the definite victor of that round.

She returned her fallen pokemon with no complaint and sent out her next pokemon, which happened to be Tangela. I grinned again, happy that I had chosen Cyndaquil as one of my four; I recalled Bayleef and sent out my fire type. Chelsea frowned when my second pokemon appeared; her Tangela ended up being stronger than her Cloyster but really wasn't a match for Cyndaquil's Flamethrower, despite possessing a particularly strong Vine Whip attack. Her third pokemon was a Persian and I replaced Cyndaquil with Pikachu, who took out not only the cat pokemon but Chelsea's final, who happened to be a Fearow.

I was happy to win the battle but felt nervous as Pikachu hopped back up on my shoulder after nearly electrocuting the bird in the final round. To my surprise, she shrugged and laughed it off. To my even greater surprise, Chelsea came over and hugged me with a grin. I must have had some stupid look on my face because she laughed again when she pulled away from the hug.

"I knew that wasn't going to end well for me," she explained with another shrug. "You're a better trainer than I could be."

I could barely reply; for some reason, this girl made even simple things, like speaking, difficult. Since my vocal chords decided not to function properly, I settled on smiling at her.

"I haven't trained in about five years and my pokemon have gotten a bit weaker since then," Chelsea finished with another small shrug.

"Pretty good, though, all things considered," I offered. My mouth had finally figured out how to work again. "I've been training for seven years, so…" I left my sentence hanging, not wanting to sound like an ass, but Chelsea seemed to understand what I was saying.

"Oh, I didn't expect to win at all – not against someone who's managed to get through five regions!" One of her cheerful laughs followed that and I couldn't help but grin; I _really_ liked hearing her laugh.

I was too busy trying – and probably failing – to not make an idiot out of myself to hear footsteps approach our battling area until Andrew's voice suddenly sounded from directly next to me, causing me to jump. "Okay, enough with all this sappy shit! You two are as bad as Gary and Anna!"

"Except for the whole poolside sex part," Chelsea replied dryly. Gary, who had turned up next to Andrew, turned red and shot the girl an absolute death glare while Chelsea snickered and I tried to tune out. The last thing I wanted to hear about was the things Gary did with his girlfriend in their spare time. The fact that they often disappeared off on their own whenever everyone was hanging out left no doubt in my mind that their relationship was… _active_; I didn't need my crush verifying the suspicions with stories that Anna had told her.

Andrew took a few minutes to pick on Chelsea for losing, something that she seemed to take in stride while teasing him for other things. In the mean time, Gary took the opportunity to quiz me on facts about the pokemon we had used in the battle and I surprised myself with how much I had learned from the study guides Mom had gotten me for the exams I would have to pass to become a gym leader. Most of the questions he drilled me on were about morphology, evolution, and attacks but there were a few random trivia questions that he slipped in there. It was quite awhile before we did anything else and I was starting to wonder why exactly Andrew had come out in the first place and why Gary had picked out his own pokemon when the two long-haired pains (and I do mean the guys, Chelsea's long hair was several inches shorter than either Gary's or Andrew's) finally headed to the places where Chelsea and I had stood before.

Then I understood why they had come out – they were going to battle each other.

I was genuinely curious as they called across the field to each other in German (I had been surprised to find out that Gary had learned a second language at some point over the years). For starters, I wondered if they would actually battle seriously; granted, Gary was quite serious in general, much less when it came to training, but being around Andrew seemed to affect him in a way that Kate and I hadn't even managed as children. As soon as that blonde boy, who was now dating Tracey, came around, Gary changed into a completely different person and was actually quite amusing to be around. Secondly, I was very interested to see what type of pokemon Andrew had. He'd said that he had trained for three years in Kanto and Gary had even said that the two of them had met a few times as trainers. When I first heard that, I'd figured that was when they had become friends but Andrew had been quick to correct me once I vocalized that assumption. Apparently he'd hated that "spoiled little fuck" up until the third week of classes at school in Pastoria. Then he found out that Gary could play guitar and they were best friends since – at least, that's what Chelsea had said though some of their other friends claimed that the two had been more than friends. I honestly didn't want to know whether or not it was true but some nagging feeling told me that it was.

I digress though. Either way, I was immediately interested when Gary called out one of his Houndoom as his first pokemon; I had seen him battle with a few of his individual Houndoom and had been quick to catch onto the fact that the dark/fire type was one of his favorites. Being powerful and intelligent, Houndoom seemed like a good match as they could size up weaknesses in opponents and hardly even needed commands while in battle. Judging by the large size of this one and the rather high number of scars on its body, I recognized that it was the alpha male of the pack on the reserve – something that Tracey had pointed out while showing me around.

I was even more interested – and rather surprised – when Andrew appeared to examine his opponent from a distance for a long moment before sending out, of all pokemon, an Ekans. Next to me, Chelsea groaned and shook her head.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered as she sat down on the ground. "A snake against a dog; there's not much of a contest there." I had to admit that I agreed with her but Andrew's Ekans looked to be at a very high level. With three intense years of training and eleven badges under his belt, Andrew had to have at least some idea of what he was doing.

Andrew made the first move and I have a feeling that Gary simply gave him that move to make a seemingly hopeless battle last a bit longer; unfortunately for Gary, that first attack was a Poison Sting. The move poisoned Houndoom with little effort and the strength of the attack made me guess that Ekans' level was around fifty while I knew that most of Gary's were around forty-five. Gary retaliated with a Flamethrower, which did a large amount of damage though the attack seemed to drain the canine horribly.

Next to me, Chelsea muttered something about not expecting Andrew to be a good trainer; her tone was startled and I figured that, much like myself, she hadn't been able to picture the obnoxious metalhead as a trainer. Looking across the field, I could see that Gary had an unreadable expression on his face as Andrew's Ekans delivered a Wrap attack that was countered with a Bite that took advantage of the close proximity of the two pokemon. I couldn't tell if Gary was surprised by Andrew's prowess; I was pretty sure that he was annoyed that, so far, he was losing to a snake but, if he was, he wasn't showing it.

Andrew laughed a bit as his Ekans stopped the Wrap and quickly moved away from the horned dog, which I noticed looked considerably weakened due to being poisoned by the snake. "Déjà vu, Gary?" he called across the field. I frowned in confusion for a second before remembering that Gary had told me in Sinnoh that he and Andrew had run into each other a few times while traveling through Kanto. I guess that means they'd battled before as well. Andrew's teasing tone made me wonder if he had beaten Gary back then.

My thoughts were cut off when Gary gave the command for Dark Pulse. It took several seconds for the attack to charge and, during that time, Ekans managed to slip in an Acid attack. The attack covered Houndoom in thick black acid but the pokemon held his ground and a purple beam of circles erupted from its mouth at Ekans. The attack hit and snake flew backwards several feet while Houndoom fell to the ground and didn't get back up.

I could see the smirk on Gary's face even from my considerable distance as Andrew recalled his first fallen pokemon – despite the fact that his houndoom had fainted from the amount of energy the attack had drained from it, he was obviously proud of the fact that he had taken out his friend's pokemon.

Andrew's next pokemon was a grovyle while Gary's was a pinsir. The grovyle was nowhere near as strong as Andrew's previous pokemon but managed to wear down the much stronger Pinsir by dodging nearly every attack until it failed to escape a Thrash attack that took it down quickly. I had to admit I was pretty disappointed to see the grovyle go down, though I was shocked by the next pokemon the Andrew called on – a charizard. Given my previous experience with the species, I was definitely curious about where this would go. As soon as the charizard appeared, Gary's typical smirk disappeared while Andrew grinned.

"Well, there's a shocker," Chelsea spoke up sarcastically.

I turned my attention from the battle for a moment to look at her, wondering what she meant by that. "What do you mean?" I asked, feeling oddly happy as she smiled at me.

"Have you _seen_ Andrew's bedroom?" She asked with raised eyebrows as though she was saying something rather obvious.

Given the amount of time I spend around this place, I figured she assumed that I knew the house as well as she did after living there for a couple weeks. I hated to correct her but, aside from those on the first floor, the only rooms I saw of the house were Tracey's, Gary's, and the massive room where we often hung out which everyone called the music room. I knew that Andrew's bedroom was between Gary and Tracey's but I'd never had a reason to go there in the first place so, for obvious reasons, I'd never seen it.

"Stupid question," Chelsea said before I could respond, slapping herself in the forehead as she did so. "I forgot that you don't live here – you're around so often. Andrew is _obsessed_ with dragons… Charizard technically isn't a dragontype but you can't exactly deny that it's a dragon –" She cut off as the Charizard issued a roar and a burst of heat reached us; we turned back to the battle in time to glimpse the end of a Fire Spin before Gary recalled his defeated Pinsir and sent out his Arcanine. "Anyway," Chelsea continued and I turned back to her. "If you know Andrew, his collection is pretty expected."

She went on to tell me that Andrew's specialty was in grass and bug type pokemon, which made me laugh a little bit since Tracey's favorite type was bug – something which had always bothered Misty. Remembering that Andrew and Tracey were now dating, I figured that it made sense for them to date – from a pokemon standpoint that is. They still seemed like polar opposites in many aspects. Oh well, not my place to criticize who someone dates; not when I've never even had a girlfriend.

Our conversation continued as the battle heated up; and I mean literally "heated up." The two fire types hurled attack after attack at each other, constantly dodging and countering in a way that was fascinating to watch. Andrew's charizard was apparently close in level to my own, but listened far better than mine did even now; I had to wonder just how often Andrew and his pokemon had worked together since it seemed almost as though the charizard knew the commands before they were even said. Eventually, even Gary's arcanine succumbed and was defeated, leaving him to call upon Umbreon to finish the battle that was quickly falling out of his favor.

Chelsea and I glanced at each other as Umbreon stepped away from her trainer's side to join the battle. This was going to be interesting.

Someone sighed behind us and I turned to see a girl with long black hair with a purple streak in the front shaking her head. "He shouldn't have used Arcanine – poor thing's so distracted by his girlfriend being ready to give birth," she said as she sat down on Chelsea's other side.

I was about to ask what she meant when Andrew turned and grinned at the sudden appearance of Gary's girlfriend. "Hey, Anna!" he called in greeting, waving cheerfully. "You're just in time to see me kick your boyfriend's ass!" Gary's response was in German and sounded harsh though he didn't really appear angry.

Anna and Chelsea both laughed, apparently understanding something that I didn't. "He's pissed," Anna said with another shake of her head. "He knows he's gonna lose – oh, that's cruel, Andrew!" she called suddenly as Andrew called back his charizard and released a lapras from his final pokeball.

I watched as Umbreon turned and presumably gave Gary a reproachful look while he cringed slightly. This was definitely getting interesting. If Gary's reaction was anything to go by, I would say that they had definitely battled each other before. Glancing at Anna as she spoke up again, I got all the confirmation I needed.

"Lapras nearly turned 'Bre into a popsicle back when she was an eevee. We were on Seafoam Island at the time," she explained to Chelsea.

"Who won that battle?" I asked curiously, noticing the way Umbreon looked horribly uncomfortable.

"Lapras won that round but Gary won overall. I have the whole thing written out somewhere – I used to write articles about the battles he did when we were younger. If you ever want some blackmail material, Ash, let me know; I still have a bunch describing battles where he lost." She gave me a playful wink and shot a small smirk at her boyfriend, who was too busy battling to notice.

While the girls started chatting about past battles, I half-tuned out and started paying more attention to the battle. Umbreon swiftly dodged an Ice Shard attack, running between the bits of ice being flung at her with amazing ease – if I envied anything at all about the abilities of Gary's pokemon, it was definitely Umbreon's agility. She was fast and almost graceful on the battlefield, making her fascinating to watch. Obviously I wasn't the only one who felt that way because Andrew commented on her speed after watching her dodge the attack entirely without taking a single hit.

She retaliated with a Quick Attack, immediately moving out of the way to dodge a powerful Water Gun only to slam back into the lapras with a Skull Bash. Lapras landed a hard-hitting Hydro Pump and Gary called out another attack that I didn't hear. Had I heard the command, I probably wouldn't have been so surprised when Umbreon skidded to a halt in the middle of an Agility maneuver and turned to Gary, who had suddenly clapped his hands over his mouth while Andrew stared at him for a moment before laughing.

Chelsea and Anna stopped talking and both turned their attention to the battle that had come to an abrupt pause. "Did that just happen?" Chelsea asked at the same time as I heard a familiar giggle behind me.

I looked up to find Kate standing behind me, giggling into her hand while her charmeleon at her side. Confused I glanced back and forth between the everyone, about to ask what I had missed when Kate spoke up first. "Sorry, Gary, but you can't use Socrates in your battle – he doesn't even know Flamethrower yet!" Glancing at the charmeleon, I finally understood what I had missed and I immediately regretted not paying closer attention. Figures I would the one person to miss Gary calling out an attack that his battling pokemon wasn't even capable of learning.

"Forget about those articles – there's your blackmail material right there," Anna choked out between laughs. I almost felt bad for Gary until I looked up to see him laughing as well, which was a bit surprising considering my old rival would have rather thrown himself off of a cliff if he had been caught doing what he had just done.

The two pokemon on the field were staring at their trainers, Lapras in confusion over what to do next, Umbreon in obvious annoyance – unsurprising considering how haughty the dark creature was. Umbreon finally turned away from her trainer and stalked across the field to where Andrew was standing, sat down next to him, and rubbed her head against his hand while glaring at Gary, who only laughed harder before slowly sobering.

"Come on, Umbreon, let's finish this up," he finally called to her after a few minutes. His pokemon looked up at Andrew and pointedly rubbed against his leg while Gary stared at her with amused disbelief. "'Bre, come on; I'm serious – stop laughing, Andrew! You're making it worse!"

Laughing at the scene, I couldn't help but tease my old rival. "Hey, Gary; Charizard may not have always listened to me, but at least he never joined the opposing trainer!" It was mean, I know, but I had to get back at him for the years of teasing somehow. Now was the perfect opportunity.

Gary hardly glanced at me, which made me scowl a bit as I was hoping for a better reaction. "You can't just quit on me, 'Bre, I'm the one that feeds you!" He shook his head with another laugh when Umbreon simply ignored him. "Fine, I'll remember that," he said coolly, crossing his arms and leaving the battling area to join us. Andrew remained on the field, laughing nearly hysterically while Lapras still sat there looking confused until it was recalled.

It took a little while for us all to calm down from the amusing turn of events – Gary had joined us on the grass, pulling Anna into his lap and then pouting playfully. I was surprised at how well he took our teasing by retorting with his sarcasm, though not in a genuinely hurtful way; it was more of a friendly teasing that I would have never expected from him just a few months ago. Andrew came over once he was done laughing and Umbreon had gone straight over to Gary to shake off the water that remained on her fur from Lapras' Hydro Pump, effectively getting both Gary and Anna wet. I wasn't sure how long we hung out in that spot, simply talking and laughing in a way that I couldn't help but love. Being away from my traveling buddies – especially Brock and Misty – had left me a bit lonely, even though I was always around people now, and I longed for the times when we would just sit around and laugh and joke like this. Doing it with the three girls and Gary and Andrew helped fill that void that I was beginning to feel.

Tracey came outside quite sometime later and joined us until we decided to go inside since it was quite cold out, even though we were sitting in a spot where there was no snow on the ground. As everyone headed towards the house, I went in the direction of the lab to heal my pokemon, barely noticing that Tracey was following me until he spoke.

"Looks like you'll get to see your next pokemon for the first time tomorrow," he said cryptically, smiling at me when I turned to ask him what he was talking about. It was a moment before I understood what he was talking about; it was the same thing Anna was talking about when she had mentioned that Gary shouldn't have used Arcanine in his battle with Andrew.

The pregnant female arcanine that was due to give birth to six growlithe puppies.

"I can have one?" I asked excitedly.

Tracey nodded. "When they're old enough," he replied, turning and walking away to leave me alone in the lab to imagine my next pokemon.

God, I couldn't wait for those puppies to be born.


End file.
